Week 5: Chocolate soufflés

Hi everyone!

Judging by the first week, this season of MasterChef looks brilliant. Nidhi, the ever-chatty Indian darling, is absolutely precious! Miles, the rough cut park ranger, is also a gem. And Jimmy, one half of the sibling duo and incessant crier, makes me want to gouge my eyes out. Well I guess a good season of MasterChef isn’t complete without a few insufferable dicks.

This week I made Gordon Ramsay’s chocolate soufflés. I must confess that I’m not a complete stranger to the recipe. I made them with my friend last year, however she, being the superior cook, did most (all) of the actual cooking. Meanwhile I spent roughly 2 hours grating chocolate and buttering ramekins- both highly complex processes, I assure you.

My cooking experience summed
up in one photo

Crème Patisserie

It was profoundly stressful bringing milk and cream just to the boil. In my time, I’ve carelessly let countless pots of milk and packet macaroni cheese erupt all over the stovetop. So this time I watched the pot like a hawk, and it was off the stove before you could say ‘boil’.

My crème patisserie was going swimmingly, until I added the dry ingredients/egg mixture. Stupidly, I forgot to stir, and it went a little lumpy. Thankfully, it un-lumped during the cooling process, due to vigorous whisking. I hate whisks a little bit less now.

Ganache

Ganache or poo you tell me

I vaguely remembered the ganache being a troublemaker last time. Unfortunately I didn't know why, as I was preoccupied with dark chocolate and a grater.

I preceded with caution and it looked fluffy and positively ganache like. Then it cooled and some horrible branch of science turned it into soggy manure. I was torn between using or binning it. But I'm lazy, and ended up using it.

Meringue mixture

Given my dark history with overbeating the shit out of practically everything, I decided to give my egg whites a more relaxed, less hasty treatment. I ended up whisking for about fifteen minutes on the second lowest setting, before finally giving in and speeding up our ancient, virtually geriatric electric mixer. It took about 20-25 minutes to get my meringues to stiff peaks. But honestly, I’d rather waste fifteen minutes than have to admit to my mother that I’d wasted six whole egg whites.

Annoyingly, our oven door is opaque, so I farewelled my soufflés with trepidation. However, after 16 minutes, they came out looking superb!

Rating Rubrik

They're like three perfect breasts

Taste: 9.5/10- they were so light and fluffy and beautiful

Presentation/resemblance to dish: 9/10- I think Gordon’s were a tad more risen and I forgot to grate chocolate on top of the souffles, but I mean who really cares?

Time: 6/10- I only took 45 minutes longer than the prescribed time. That’s on time in my book.

Kitchen Mess: 1/10- yeah look, not gonna lie, it was a bombsite.

Soufflés were a grand success, however my prior experience helped. Sorry for cheating! Enjoy the rest of Marco week everybody!

Cheers,

Rosa