Pearls, Curls & French Cuisine – Chapter 9: Soufflé à la Vanille

Siiri
Jul 10
3 min read

Dearest reader,

After eight (more or less successful) French recipes, I had managed to muster some fool's condifence in finally trying out the formitable soufflé which Julia Child describes as the highest triumph of French cuisine – an epitome of everything that French cooking is about. Daunting? Yes. Venturesome? Most certainly! But I was determined to do Julia proud.

So I put on my pearls,

tied back my curls

and opened page 525 of

Mastering the Art of French Cooking

Fortunately, even in the thick of my new found confidence in cooking, the meek and reasonable voice in my head suggested to start from the basics. And so, a soufflé à la vanille was opted out as my first ever attempt of soufflé making.

The Process of Souffé à la Vanille

To my surprise, the method of soufflé is fairly simple. First you prepare your baking dish with butter and coat it in sugar. Then you move onto a light sauce which can be made in three different ways: béchamel, crème pâtissière or bouilli. The later, bouilli – a mixture of milk, sugar and flour – being the one utilised for soufflé à la vanille for its light quality.

All you need for soufflé à la vanille are:

butter, flour, milk, sugar, eggs, salt and vanilla flavoring

Once the sauce is done you wisk in egg yolks, butter and vanilla, after which, comes the crucial part of all soufflé making: whipping egg whites. As it turns out, the egg whites need to be thoroughly whipped (like super thoroughly) otherwise the soufflé does not rise, which is the very purpose of a soufflé. So there I was: whipping (on a stad mixer), hoping for the best but utterly clueless.

After some time I decided that enough is enough, and moved onto the stage where the sauce and whipped egg whites are carefully combined by hand, but this time, not too thoroughly so that the egg whites do not loose their airiness.

Finally, all that was left was baking the soufflé and seeing wether it would rise in the oven. In my case, it did rise, however, not as much as I expected. At first glance, I was more than satisfied with the result of my first ever soufflé, which immediately turned into mortification because the souffé began to collapse as soon as it was out of the oven. That was when, I thought I was a cook banished from the fine art of soufflé making.

Later – one emotional breakdown more in the books of history – I discovered that soufflés always collapse, and that Julia even mentioned it earlier in the savory soufflé chapter. Needless to say, I felt the blessed pardon of cooking world setteling upon me and was happy to sample my collapsed but otherwise rather good first soufflé at last.

The Result

By the time I finally got to tasting my first soufflé à la vanille, several hours had passed and this triumph of French cuisine was looking very flat and wrinkled like an old raisin. (That is why you eat your soufflé the moment its taken out of the oven.) BUT, gosh was it beautiful! I have genuinely never eaten anything so soft and delicate and comforting. In fact, I could have shed a tear. Oh what a day it was.

Until next time!

Yours Truly,

Siiri