Chocolate Cake Soufflés (Bake-Along Part One)

I away remember the moment that I tasted my first soufflé at a Yarra Valley winery restaurant...

I didn't like eating the soufflé dessert at all. All because I didn't like its overpowering egg-y smell and mashy texture. To be fair, it wasn't the restaurant's fault. Being soufflé, I reckon this would be the typical kind of taste and texture that I should be expecting. As it was my first, I wasn't ready to accept the fact that a typical soufflé is like that.

Since then, I have no intention of baking or eating any soufflé. Now knowing that I have to bake a soufflé with Joyce from Kitchen Flavours and Lena, from Frozen wings for our bake-along, I begin to gain interest in soufflé baking...

Accordingly to Wikipedia, a soufflé is a lightly baked cake made with egg yolks and beaten egg whites combined with various other ingredients. It can be served as a savory dish or a dessert. The word soufflé is the past participle of the French verb, souffler which means "to blow up" and this word is mainly used to describe what happens to the combination of custard and egg whites.

There are so many kinds of soufflé recipes everywhere. Some are savories. Some are the classics ones being fruity or chocolaty. Some contain cream but some don't. Some are in the form of cakes and interestingly being fallen soufflé cake. Even, the savories ones have lots of variations... Some are twice baked or even cooked in a form of soufflé omelette.

Having so many soufflé recipes to choose... Seriously, which one is best one to bake? I keep asking myself... Is this going to eggy? Mashy? Not sure... I was confused... Giving up? How about me eeni meeni mini moh? - LOL!

With all these deep crazy soufflé thinking, I have finally decided to bake two different soufflés. The part one of my soufflés baking (this post) is the dessert-kind and as always, I choose to bake with our favourite ingredient, chocolate! Part two (the next post) is the savoury-kind soufflés and so please stay tune for my next soufflés post within the next 10 days...

Like my previous Crème Brûlée bake-along, I have to apologise that I sort of "cheated" again. I have chosen to bake a chocolate-cake-like soufflés because I know that it has lesser egg to other ingredients proportion and will be most unlikely to have any eggy smell or mashy taste. I felt safe baking this and know that nothing is going into waste...

Man: What is this?
Me: Chocolate soufflés.
Man: You know that I don't like soufflés. 
Me: This is soufflé but doesn't taste like soufflé.
Man: You are right! This is a moist chocolate cake! I can eat this.

... LOL! Our soufflé conversation sounds a little silly, isn't it?

This chocolate-cake soufflé is not eggy or mashy at all.

This is like making a chocolate cake batter.

Before and after baking

Best to serve this while they are freshly baked.

Yum!

Here are the easy chocolate soufflés that I used from Taste.com.au
(with my modfication and notes in blue)

200g good-quality dark chocolate, chopped
(I used Callebaut chocolate with 70% cocoa)
100g butter, chopped
2/3 cup dark brown sugar
5 eggs, at room temperature, separated
2 tbsp plain flour
2 tbsp cocoa powder
(I used Dutch processed)
1/4 cup caster sugar
thickened cream and icing sugar mixture, to serve

Preheat oven to 180°C (or 160°C fan forced). Grease a 6cm deep, 20cm (base) 8-cup capacity square ovenproof dish.

Combine chocolate and butter in a heatproof, microwave-safe bowl. Microwave, uncovered, on MEDIUM-HIGH (70%) for 2 min, stirring every minute with a metal spoon, until almost melted. Stir until smooth. Stir in brown sugar. Set aside for 10 min to cool.

Beat egg yolks with a fork to combine.Stir into chocolate mixture. Sift flour and cocoa together over chocolate mixture. Stir to combine. Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Add caster sugar, 1 tbsp at a time, beating until thick and glossy.

Add 1 tbsp egg white to chocolate mixture. Mix well. Using a large metal spoon, gently fold in remaining egg white. Spoon mixture into prepared dish. Bake for 35 min or until just firm to touch. Dust with icing sugar.

Serve warm with cream.

Note: Using 2/5 of the recipe, I have baked 3 soufflés using well-greased ramekins (each is about 200 ml) and baked them at 160°C fan forced for 25 min.

Happy Baking
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Please note that the linky tool for bake-along is no longer available.