Tuesday, 17 July 2007

Recipe: Egg-White-Only Chocolate Souffle


I'm not entirely sure why - collateral damage, I suppose, from the egg yolk surplus needed for Hollandaise, Creme Patissiere, Custards, Ice Creams, etc - but there is always an egg-white surplus in my fridge (in all my fridges, to be exact, in both countries!), and I'm forever in search of ways of putting it to good use. Not always with success. Egg-White Cheese Souffle works well, and there are a few sorbets I can think of that use more whites than yolks (Grapefruit and Pear, particularly), but for the most part it's an uphill struggle. Egg white frittata is an abomination, IMHO, and the other day I tried a Hazan recipe for Apple Timbale that made serious inroads into the EW mountain - no good.........two and two didn't even make four. It was food for people with no teeth and a fondness for very sweet things (possibly not unrelated).

This yolkless Chocolate Souffle recipe definitely makes more than four, however, and has become one of my standard responses to What the Hell are we going to have for Dessert Tonight, when it's already 8 p.m and I haven't yet given the matter any thought......

For Two:

Ingredients: 50g plain chocolate: 4 Egg Whites; 2 oz sugar (or equivalent volume sweetener); 1 teaspoon Praline Paste (if you have it; if not it won't matter if you leave it out.)

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees C.

2. Melt the Chocolate together with the Praline Paste in a zimmertopf or in a bowl over hot water.

3. Whisk the Egg Whites until firm, then add the sugar/sweetener and continue to whisk until stiff.

4. Stir a little of the beaten Egg White into the melted Chocolate to lighten it, then fold the Chocolate mixture back into the body of the beaten Egg White. Divide this mixture between two greased ramekins*, and bake in the pre-heated oven for eight minutes, until risen and the surfaces appear dry and as though they are about to break open.

* recently, I've taken to using individual egg dishes rather than ramekins for this recipe. They work well, and arguably actually better than ramekins.

6 comments:

Joanna said...

Thanks for this ... I've often wondered whether choc souffle would work without egg yolk (by which I mean not taste as if it should have egg yolk), and never tried it because so many egg-white-only recipes are so utterly disgusting. (I find it pretty incredible that anyone can think that a yolkless omelette would be worth making, never mind eating.)

Joanna

Pomiane said...

I'm with you on that one! But any worthwhile egg-white-only recipes will be happily received, should you know of any. (Equally, pomegranates, of which I have an annual glut and no use for them......I've been searching for years, and whenever anybody excitedly sends me one, it always turns out to be a pomegranate-less dish, which then merely has pomegranate seeds scattered over it as a garnish!)

Anonymous said...

Scusa, che cosa è un egg-dish? È simile ad un egg-cup?

Pomiane said...

No, è completamente diferent. È una piastra che è completamente piana, con un bordo basso (d'altezza forse 1 centimetro) e due piccole maniglie…. Provo di trovare un imago per lei....

osie said...

I make this same dish but put half of the mousse in the fridge and the other half in the oven as you do... You get a souffle and a chocolate mousse. 2 for the price of one.

Another thing I do if I am making ice cream is to make the custard and make 'floating islands' with the egg white - 5 mins and its ready.

Once served, the rest of the custard can go in the ice cream machine. also a 2 for one...

Egg white overstocker said...

I tried this last night - with a little Ginger syrup I had made instead of the praline, and a little butter to help the chocolate melt

It turned out perfectly - light and delicious. I make a lot of curd tarts (see the river cafe for the best version) and so always seem to have lots of whites kicking around

Thanks!