Chocolate Soufflé

Soufflé means “to blow up” in French, did you know that? I didn’t. I personally thought it was French for insanely delicious. Or “to suffer” because soufflés seem extremely difficult to cook. Fret not my fellow Paleo-ites, they are actually pretty dang easy! And that’s coming from me, the girl who just today had to Google “How do you beat egg whites by hand.” Are your Google queries ever ridiculous like that? Mine ALWAYS are. Anyway we’ll get back to that later and you can laugh with (at) me then.

So I was randomly thinking the other day, what if someone were to ask me what my favorite dessert is, how would I answer? How COULD I answer?! It would be like having to choose my favorite song, or movie, or book, or pair of shoes (ladies you feel me on this one). But what if I really had to choose?! What if someone were to hold a gun to my head and scream “Tell me what your favorite dessert is or I’ll shoot your dessert loving brains out!” (which obviously is something that could totally actually happen). I guess my answer would have to be…chocolate soufflé. When I think about chocolate soufflé two words always come to mind…sinfully decadent. There’s just something about chocolate soufflé. The delicate balance between light and airy and dense and flavorful. The entire experience intrigues me, but most of all it’s the little details that I appreciate about chocolate soufflé…how the spoon feels in your hand when it glides through the surface, breaking the precarious mold. The moment when you take that first bite and its divine chocolate richness envelops your tongue and your eyes close involuntarily to let you savor every single sensory element of melting chocolate bliss…

So anyway as I was saying (wiping the drool off my keyboard) I dig chocolate soufflé. I’ve been craving it ever since Valnetine’s Day when I was browsing my Shopkick app and a recipe for none other than chocolate soufflé popped up. I glanced at the ingredients and was in awe at how perfectly the stars had aligned. My favorite dessert in all the land, is gluten free, and with one or two minor tweaks, it’s completely Paleo! Whaat?! Another “Paleo luck out?!” I know! It’s too good to be true! You can find the recipe I used here but I will type it out for you below with my notes…and videos! Get excited!

Paleo Chocolate Soufflé
*Makes 1-2 servings

Ingredients:
3 tablespoons grass-fed butter or ghee
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
3 ounces semisweet or bittersweet chocolate – I used a combination of Enjoy Life Mega-Chunks and 85% cacao dark chocolate
1/2 teaspoon madagascar bourbon vanilla extract (Trader Joe’s)
2 egg yolks
2 egg whites
2 tablespoons coconut palm sugar
pinch salt
pinch of cream of tartar

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 375° F. Use 1 tablespoon of the butter or ghee to grease one 16-ounce or two 8-ounce ramekins. Coat the ramekins with the cocoa, tapping out the excess.

2. In a large bowl, over a pan of simmering water, melt the chocolate and remaining butter or ghee. Stir occasionally until smooth. Remove from heat and add the vanilla. Whisk in the yolks one at a time until smooth. Set aside.

3. In a clean bowl, beat the egg whites with the coconut palm sugar, salt, and cream of tartar until stiff (but not dry) peaks form.

4. Gently fold the egg-white mixture into the chocolate.

5. Spoon into the ramekins. Bake until puffed and set, 40 minutes for one 16-ounce soufflé, 20 minutes for two 8-ounce ones. Serve immediately.

Notes:
Okay now it’s time to laugh (at) with me…what the H-E- Double Hockey Sticks is a stiff but not dry egg peak?! Is this general knowledge that most people just walk around with in their every day lives?! Unfortunately my kitchen is lacking a few key items, one of them being…gasp…a hand mixer! I have this cute little Cuisinart stick one that I got for Christmas and it works really well for most things, but it’s not a legit hand mixer…like the kind you used to lick stuff off when you were a kid and your mom made a cake or something and it’s definitely not a KitchenAid stand mixer…sigh…and it sure as heck didn’t work to turn the egg whites into stiff but not dry peaks (whatever that means still). After 5 minutes of blending my whites were still watery and sad.

For this kind of disaster waiting to happen I consult Google then I YouTube. I have included a video on what to do if you DO have a proper hand mixer and what to do if you just have your hand and a whisk. They are both short and totally informative!

Here’s how to whip egg whites with a hand mixer.

Here’s how to whip egg whites by hand. This guy is funny, his whisking video is so dramatic!

Okay so dirty secret confession time. I didn’t want to waste my pathetic egg white mixture so I used it anyway and guess what, it worked! My chocolate soufflés came out fabulous! I ate one right away, duh, I had to, I do have an important blog to write and I saved the other one for the Stewart to my Martha (Brad). Only he came home about 2 hours later and by then the exquisite chocolate soufflé was cold, shrunken and very un-fabulous. I told him he didn’t have to eat it, I just wanted him to witness my mad soufflé skillz. Being so loving and supportive he literally dipped a finger in it, took a bite, and then continued to unceremoniously devour the entire thing! By hand! “This is delicious, it’s like a really good brownie!” A brownie? Seriously? Ugh. How uncouth.

Until next time I bid you a chocolate Paleo adieu!