Bittersweet Chocolate Soufflés

There's this myth out there that chocolate souffle

is a really hard complicated dessert,

but it only uses a few ingredients

and it comes together fast,

but there are a couple tricks to success

and I'll walk you through those today.

This chocolate souffle recipe only uses six ingredients.

This is six ounces of dark chocolate,

use the best quality chocolate you can find

because that is the flavor of the dish.

Two tablespoons of brewed coffee,

one tablespoon of butter,

and then I'll bring this over to the stove.

I have about a half inch of water simmering in this pot,

and the important thing when you're melting chocolate

is not to let it burn,

and that's why we use a water bath on the bottom.

It's a very gentle heat.

And I can kinda leave this here on low heat

while I butter my molds.

This recipe makes four individual souffles.

I use a pastry brush and lightly butter

the inside of the molds to coat.

I want to coat the bottom and then as I coat the sides

use upward strokes with the brush.

And this kind of signals for the souffle to rise up.

But all of these ramekins have a little inside lip.

I want to butter that also.

Now these are almost ready but I want to coat them in sugar.

So coat all the way around and tap out the excess.

Now I have to check on my chocolate.

This is melted and smooth.

I'm gonna bring it back to my station.

To the chocolate mixture I want to add two teaspoons

of vanilla extract and my three egg yolks.

And I just wanna let this cool while I whip my egg whites.

When beating egg whites it's good in the beginning

to beat it on low, just to break up the egg whites

and make it more liquid.

And then one teaspoon of kosher salt.

And then increase the speed.

I'm basically making a meringue,

but I don't want to add the sugar until I've gained

a little bit of volume in the eggs.

You can see from where you are these are what

I would call very soft peaks.

They barely hold their shape but not quite.

And now I'm ready to start adding the sugar.

Mixer up on high.

I want to whip it until the egg whites

are stiff and glossy, but not dry.

So I'm at that stage, you can see that this is a stiff peak.

I'm ready to fold these into the chocolate.

So the first thing I do is I fold in about a third

to lighten it and then it's easier to fold in the rest.

And it helps to use big long strokes

to keep all the air in there.

Now I fill the molds.

The idea here is I want to overfill the molds, actually.

And you can take a flexible spatula,

I have a bench scraper, anything with a straight edge,

even a butter knife, and I wanna just level the souffles

and I'm gonna pour it back into the bowl

just to catch the drips.

So kind of a quick motion,

and then give it a tap for any extra bubbles.

Now a final sprinkling of sugar on top.

I just like that this gives it a little bit

of crunch and texture.

Sometimes you see people run their thumb

around the edge of the ramekin.

It's an extra insurance policy.

Without further ado, these go into the oven

which I have at 425.

425 is fairly hot.

I want that initial blast of hot air

so that the air in the whites expands and they start to rise

but they also need a bit of time to cook through

so I'm gonna drop the temp immediately down to 400.

It's been 14 minutes.

I know!

I'm very pleased with how these look.

Flat top, straight sides.

The thing about souffles is you want to serve them

as soon as they come out of the oven,

I mean the moment they're ready

because they'll start to deflate.

Spoon into the center, which is still

you can see the texture, it's still custardy and soft.

I have creme anglais here.

Creme anglais is a fancy term

for basically melted vanilla ice cream.

It is the ice cream base.

It is 11:47 am, I've had my coffee but nothing else.

So my breakfast is chocolate souffle.

Not too bad.

They're so light, but so so chocolately.

It's really become one of my favorite entertaining desserts

and also good for Valentine's Day.

So thank you for watching.

I hope you try chocolate souffle at home.