Almond Cherry Souffle with Warm Chocolate Sauce

The past couple of weeks have been extremely quiet in Beetle's Kitchen. I've been down with different kinds of the flu, plaguing me one after the other. So, for a little over two weeks, my taste buds abandoned me and even the sight of the kitchen made me want to throw up. It of course goes without saying that I haven't been inspired to try anything new and hence, there hasn't been anything worthy of sharing here. 


But, a couple of days back I was watching an episode of The Next Ironchef - Superchefs and a couple of the chefs made souffles with the ingredients given to them. The guru himself, and my favorite, Jeffrey Zacharian Geoffrey Zakarian (I'm ashamed to have gotten his name wrong earlier :S), blew the judges off their seats with his finesse and perfect technique in the kitchen generally and also his perfect souffle. He'd made a blueberry souffle with a sauce whose name I've forgotten. As with any Food Network cooking show, I thought I'd check the website to see if any of the chefs recipes were online. Believe it or not, every chef, cook, ironchef has recipes on the site except, you guessed it, Jeffrey. His dishes really are his best kept secrets.


I decided to hunt for souffle recipes on other sites and wanted something that would use cherries. I had a bag of them and thought I'd try them in a recipe instead of wolfing them down fresh. That's when I came across this german site with a recipe for Almond Cherry Souffle. Bingo! That was it. I made a couple of changes to the original recipe and the result was delightful! I'd forgotten what a lovely combination cherries and almond essence made. The warm chocolate sauce is absolutely to die for. I licked the leftover chocolate sauce clean.


The only regret I have is not taking any pictures of the souffle fresh from the oven. They had risen like beauties and had fallen by the time I finally got some pictures of them. So please excuse the fallen souffle pictures. They still tasted heavenly! Bon Appetit!

Ingredients:

• Butter for preparing ramekins
• 1 1/2 cups pitted fresh cherries
• 3 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 5 large egg whites, room temperature
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 recipe warm chocolate sauce (recipe below)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter 6 8-ounce ramekins, place on a baking sheet, and set aside.

Combine cherries, lemon juice and almond extract in a blender and puree until very smooth and almost fluffy. Transfer to a medium bowl and set aside.

In a large, clean, metal bowl, beat egg whites on medium speed until very soft peaks form. Continue to beat while slowly adding sugar in a steady stream. Beat until peaks are stiff but not dry. Use a rubber spatula to beat one-third of egg whites into cherry puree. Gently fold puree into remaining egg whites. Divide this mixture among ramekins and smooth the tops. Bake just until well-risen and beginning to brown, 12 to 14 minutes.

Serve the souffles immediately. Top with chocolate sauce, if desired.

Warm Chocolate Sauce:

Heat 2 or 3 inches of water in a small saucepan to a low simmer. Combine 5 ounces coarsely chopped German milk chocolate with 3 tablespoons butter and 1/4 cup heavy cream in a heatproof bowl that fits over saucepan — bowl should not touch water. Stir until chocolate melts. Remove from heat and stir well until smooth; serve immediately. (Sauce may be reheated by setting it over simmering water as in preparation.)

Please excuse the dents on the souffle, made by a clumsy baker :)

Pumpkin souffle bake

(Archived from Nuts & Sprinkles)

The season of fall is beautiful here. The pretty image of different shades of red, orange and brown leaves on trees and roads makes you ALMOST forget the chill in the air. Yes, winter is almost here and my bones are already creaking!

The time is perfect to try some pumpkin recipes. Great timing also with Halloween that just went by. This is a recipe I saw on a Paula Deen show on Food Network. I read a comment about her somewhere - it said that Paula can never cook a dish without a couple of sticks of butter. It is so true! Every dish of hers has to have either mounds or smaller dollops of butter. That's why I try to minimize the number of dishes I try from her collection. But, when I saw this dish on her show, I had to try it, come what may! So, enjoy and forget counting your calorie intake for just a day...or two *wink*. Bon Appétit!

Ingredients:

For the pie -

• ¾ cup flour 
• 3/4 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice (I made my own spice mix with ground cinnamon, nutmeg and all-spice) 
• 1/3 cup sugar 
• ¼ teaspoon salt 
• 3 tablespoon Butter 
• 4 eggs, separate the yolks from the whites (add only the yolks first and beat the egg whites separately and fold in gently at the end) 
• ¾ cup buttermilk 
• 1 ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract 
• 1 cup pumpkin puree 

For the garnish -

• 1/2 cup pecan halves 
• 1 1/2 tablespoons butter 
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Start with preparing the garnish. Melt the butter on a medium flame. Add the brown sugar. When the brown sugar starts to melt, add the pecan halves and cook for 1-2 minutes. Turn off flame and set aside.

Mix the flour, pumpkin pie spice, sugar and salt in a bowl and keep aside.



In another bowl, melt the butter. Add the egg yolks, buttermilk, vanilla extract and whisk till combined well. Slowly add the flour mixture. Mix in the pumpkin puree.

Beat the egg whites separately until it becomes fluffy with soft peaks and gently fold into the pumpkin batter.

Grease and flour your baking dish. Pour the mixture into the baking dish and top with the pecan garnish. Bake in the oven for around 20 minutes. Let it cool for a couple of minutes before digging in.

Dust powdered sugar on top and you can also serve it with maple syrup.