Q&A -- All About Eggs -- Souffles

[bob_ericson]

In your directions you use 15 yolks and 10 whites... when you use the "pluck out" method of separating eggs, how do you know how much egg white to remove?

[project]

It's been years since I did a souffle. When I did them, they all went 'poof' up very high, no problem. I did chocolate a few times; cheese more times; and orange most of all.

But, I didn't really like the results and quit because I had three questions with no answers:

(1) Cap. A common trick is, just before the souffle goes into the oven, to dig a circular trench in the batter where the circle is horizontal, the center of the circle is on the vertical center line of the souffle dish, the diameter of the trench circle is maybe 1/2" less than the inside diameter of the top of the souffle dish, and the trench is about 1/2 as deep as the depth of the batter. Then, during the baking, the batter is supposed to form a split (crevice, canyon) and leave the inside of the circle an especially high cap. The interior of the trench is mostly not browned and, thus, makes a contrast in color with the browned parts of the cap. There is a good photograph on the cover of

'Foods of the World: The Cooking of Provincial France', Time-Life Books, New York, 1968.

When I tried this trench trick, my batter was never viscous enough; the trench didn't stay formed; and I got very little cap effect.

(2) The best restaurant souffles I had had interesting interior texture. The interior texture of my souffles was not very homogeneous and was more like clumps of curds surrounded by wetter egg foam; the best restaurant souffles had a more homogeneous texture that was more a very light custard. My inhomogeneous texture was not as attractive.

(3) However good my souffles looked coming out of the oven, served on a plate they were not very attractive. For the orange souffles, I did coat the inside of the souffle dish with butter and sugar, and this coating mostly stuck to the batter and tasted good. Also the Grand Marnier aroma was good. Otherwise, the dish as served on a plate wasn't so attractive.

In all the sources I consulted, I never saw any discussion of getting the batter thick enough for a cap to form or how to get a desirable texture or appearance on the plate. I gave up.

Any ideas on thick batter for caps, texture, or appearance as served?

[kjohn]

More flour in the sauce makes things thicker.