Think of a very small dish of something delicious placed in
front of you. It just invites savouring,
taking small bites, lingering over every mouthful.
When I dived back into cooking this year, I revisited old
recipes as I dusted off techniques and remembered the tricks I’d learnt over 20
years ago. A classic lemon soufflé was
one of the first recipes I tried, followed by chocolate, then raspberry (if I’d
found some gooseberries they would have been next). The classic way of serving a cold soufflé is
to tie a paper “collar” around the soufflé dish, fill to about an inch higher
than the dish, and remove the “collar” just before serving. However, I’ve found some small glass dishes,
so I thought I’d try the next soufflé on the list as a very small dish of
delicious dessert.
For a cold soufflé recipe, I can’t go past Cordon Bleu
Desserts and Puddings – I’ve adapted their recipe here.
Cold Orange Soufflé
Serves 8-12, depending on the size of the
serving bowls
3 large eggs
170g castor
sugar
6 tbsp
freshly squeezed orange justice
Finely
grated rind of 2 oranges (make sure that you avoid the white part of the rind,
as it is bitter)
300 ml cream
2 tsp
powdered gelatine
Juice of 1
lemon, made up to 5 tbsp with water
Sprinkle the gelatine over the lemon/water mix and leave to
swell (do this in a small heatproof dish).
Whisk* the egg yolks, sugar and orange rind at high speed
until thick and mousse-like. To really
get the maximum amount of air in this step, you can do this over a pan of
simmering water – but make sure that your bowl doesn’t touch the water, or
you’ll end up with sweet scrambled eggs.
Once they are lovely and thick, place the bowl on the bench, add the
orange juice, and keep whisking until the bowl is cool. The mixture will thin out quite a bit when
you add the juice, but just keep on whisking!
*In case you think I’m mad, I should really say “whisk with
electric handheld beater”, but you can use an actual whisk if you prefer.
Place the gelatine dish into a pot of water (the water in
the pot should come about halfway up the gelatine dish), and heat gently until
the spongy gelatine dissolves. Set aside
to cool for up to 5 minutes – you don’t want it to reset, but it is better to
be warm, rather than hot, when you add it to the other ingredients.
Half whip the cream – so that it just holds its shape, but
is not stiff – it should be the same consistency as your egg yolk mixture. Fold together. Gently stir the liquid gelatine mixture
through the mixture.
Whisk the egg whites until they are stiff but not dry. I use a copper bowl for whisking egg whites,
as they hold more air, but an ordinary bowl will be fine. Whatever you use, make sure both the bowl and whisk are spotlessly clean, otherwise the egg whites will refuse to whisk up nicely. Place the bowl of soufflé mixture into a sink
of ice/water (to assist with rapid cooling/setting) and mix in a good spoonful
of the egg whites (this will loosen up the mixture so that you can gently fold
in the remainder without losing all the air you’ve just been beating in to
them). Fold in the remaining egg
whites. Slowly stir the mixture once or
twice a minute, until it is thickening.
Turn into the bowl or bowls and refrigerate until set.
You could add a blob of whipped cream and some finely
chopped pistachios for a bit of colour when serving. But it tastes great on its own, in a small
dish with a small spoon. A nice dessert
wine (even if it does have a rather provocative name) will round out the
evening nicely.
