My first soufflé!

Ina Garten appeared on this week's episode of Sunday Morning on CBS and she inspired me to dust off one of my favorite cookbooks, “Barefoot in Paris - Barefoot Contessa.” 

I came across this Blue Cheese Soufflé recipe, and had to try it. Generally, I shy away from (read am terrified of) recipes that require too many chemical reactions. For this reason, I’ve never made bread, never made a merengue, never brewed beer by myself, never made pizza dough – you get the gist. I’m envious of Pedro’s knack for these types of cooking adventures, and enjoy helping him but have never ventured to try a recipe like this on my own.

Nonetheless, I approached this soufflé with confident optimism, and did it ever pay off!

One thing I learned about the process of making a soufflé is that it essentially consists of two parts. The base sauce that flavors the dish (can be salty or sweet) called the crème pâtissière, and the whipped egg whites. You gently fold these two components together, and this is what gives a soufflé its characteristic lift. Julia Childs’ cookbook “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” provides an excellent overview of the proportions required for each of these two components, which gives you the flexibility to make any kind of soufflé you’d like. I recommend actually making a soufflé first, using Ina’s recipe, and then diving in to Julia Childs’ chapter on the soufflé (she gets a little technical and it would have been hard for me to understand without having first experimented on one of my own).

When reading Ina’s recipe, I had to google “scalded milk” to understand the subtlety of scalding milk vs. scorching it. It turns out, heating milk to 82 degrees C helps to break down certain enzymes and proteins in the milk. It’s all magic to me as to how this helps with the cooking of the soufflé, but important to note nonetheless.

Finally a brief word about equipment. I had never made merengue with egg whites before, and I absolutely can’t imagine doing this by hand. In my opinion, a KitchenAid (or other kind of electric mixer) is a must. So is cream of tartar to stabilize the whipped egg whites. In terms of ramekins for baking a soufflé, Julia Childs mentions in her chapter that you can almost use “any old baking” dish. This may be the case, but since I felt like I was tempting fate by even embarking on this recipe in the first place, I went ahead and bought a nice porcelain 64 oz. ramekin that I’m sure I’ll be using for my next soufflé adventure.

Happy Soufflé-ing! And a special thank you to Pedro for supervising (and saving!) the crème pâtissière.