Vanilla Souffles

 
Souffle. 

You hear the word and the image of a delicate dessert set in a cute French bakery on a light Spring day crosses your mind. After the pleasant image plays to the end of its reel, another takes it place. Cartoon characters rush into a kitchen just as you pull the souffle from the oven, excited to see its risen cylindrical golden top.

Boom! Clatter!

The characters crash into pots and pans and yell in surprise.

The souffle exhales a big fat POOT! and crumples into itself. The expression on your face is that of priceless horror and sadness.

Oh, souffle, oh souffle.

You put the ramekins down and chase those cartoon characters into the horizon as cartoon-y music plays in the background. Th-th-th-that's all folks!

...

Is that what you imagine when you hear about souffles and thinking about making them? There may be a misconception that souffles are hard to make and that they deflate if there is a large sound. Quite the contrary. Souffles are very simple to make and the deflation is a matter of time not audio agitation. Because souffles deflate so quickly, they must be served right away and I think this contributes to its perception as a difficult dessert to make. It is only difficult because it must be made and served at the right time.

As an aspiring baker, I believe you have to make a souffle at least once. It's like a requirement to call yourself a baker. Muffins, brownies, cookies. Yeah, yeah, we can all make those. But when I imagine a true European baker, I imagine the careful creation of decorated cakes, tartlets, croissants, and souffles. My goals to becoming a better baker include making these items at least once in my life, and eventually coming back to perfect them.

You have already seen the labor-intensive devil's food chocolate cake that I made for my sister's graduation. (which I realize I never posted about. Whoops. Typical me. And I can't find all my photos from my sister's graduation...there were so many good pictures T_T ... That cake was so awesome and I put so much work into it)

I made a healthy fruit tart that was tasty enough but could use some work with the crust.

And I made whole wheat croissants before that took so much butter and so much rolling. The whole wheat croissants were tasty (despite a little more time spent in the oven than I had wanted) but it is definitely something you have to have a lot of free time and energy for. (Again, I cannot find the pictures. And I totally thought I had posted about them or at least the pictures before, but I went through all my posts and see nothing! Oh sadness)

My grandma would agree; she recently made croissants too and said she would probably not try and make them again. Costco croissants are fine and dandy, thank you very much.

I decided to make a classic vanilla souffle. My decision was prompted by this new YouTube baker I randomly found one day. Eugenie Kitchen is such a pristine cooking blog and series of cooking videos. Eugenie is this adorable Korean lady who talks eloquently, speaks French, and teaches each recipe through straightforward, well-explained steps. She even has every ingredient placed in such cute bowls and plates. I watched her video for vanilla souffle and was impressed by how easy it seemed. When I came home for winter break, I was excited to try it because my sister bought ramekins (she had bought them to make creme brulee, but I don't think that has happened yet).

  I followed her recipe to the dot and my 4 ramekins full of souffle came out so perfect and amazing! With a light dusting of powdered sugar, they were the perfect degree of sweetness. It was like an eggy, airy pancake. It was still warm inside. You pierce the top with a spoon and then it sinks through the moist spongy interior. You put it in your mouth and the flavor of vanilla and custard hits your tastebuds while the warmth enhances the experiences.

Souffles are such an awesome dessert. I would like to make them more often, but it is sad they only last around 10 minutes. They start deflating around 5 minutes, so you really have to eat them fast. Even after deflating, they are still edible and still have the same flavor, just not all of the awesome flavor of fresh.

I would highly recommend trying out this recipe at least once in your baking career. It is little effort with big reward.

For the recipe, hop on over to Eugenie Kitchen!

French Onion Soup

As promised, here is the French Onion Soup I made at the beginning of this week.

I bought a bag of onions a couple of weeks ago, so I wanted to use the rest of it. Onions are used in basically every recipe for extra flavor, and they're chock full of good vitamins. They have the flavanoid called quercetin, which protects against cataracts, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. They also contain 20% of your daily recommended vitamin C. Flavor and taste! What better reason to eat them?

...Well, I guess the tears.

So, I was cutting just 3 medium yellow/Vidalia onions and I was crying for at least 6 hours afterward. It was rather annoying. My nose kept running and the onions left their bite on the cutting board, so when my house-mate cut peaches, it had an undertone of onions. Whoops. Ah well, the soup came out good enough.

So, I made my own vegetable stock from scraps of carrots, lettuce, zucchini, broccoli, onions, and cilantro from the past two weeks. Just threw them in a pot of water and boiled with dried basil and oregano and sea salt. I did this first, then proceeded to make my French Onion Soup.

French Onion Soup (serves 4-5)
Ingredients
1-2 Tbs butter
3 yellow/ Sweet Vidalia onions, chopped into large pieces
2 garlic cloves, crushed and chopped
3-4 or 5 cups vegetable broth (beef broth would probably taste better)
~4 Tbs or more of balsamic vinegarette to replace white wine (I'm a sophomore, I don't have access to alcohol...)
Oregano, basil, salt, and pepper to taste

Directions
1. Melt butter in stovepot. Layer in onions with sprinkles of salt. Don't pan-fry them. You want them to turn translucent and soft. Cook for some 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
2. Pour in vegetable broth and garlic. Season with herbs and salt and pepper. Bring to boil, then simmer, covered for 1 hour, stirring periodically. Pour in balasmic vinegarette halfway through, maybe. Taste and adjust seasonings.
3. Once satisfactory, turn off heat, let cool a bit.

Now, you can serve it with some toasted bread with cheese melted on top! The classic way is to pour them into broiler-safe crocks, top with slices of crusty French baguette and Gruyere cheese, and broil until they look GOOOD. As you can see from my pictures, I didn't have that stuff, so I just used my Oroweat potato bread and grated parmesan cheese. Good enough. Oh, and the picture has ground turkey in it, but it's as good without as well. Enjoy this college-version of French Onion Soup!