Soufflé, Faire des Progrès

Finally, progress on the soufflé front. Last night, soufflé class at the Viking Cooking School. What fun! Five participants, two men, two other women, me. Two chefs -- both kind of cute, by the way, which doesn’t hurt the experience at all. This class is part of their “Cooking without a Book” series,

But here’s the real goods: I asked head chef about the problem of my soufflés rising only in the center (see the photo below, left) and he had the solution instantly: I wasn’t giving the mixture adequate foothold to climb the sides of the dish!

I watched him as he buttered each dish (he used individual ramekins), then coated each in either sugar, cocoa, or bread crumbs (depending on the recipe), paying close attention to the coating of the dish sides. This addition of texture is the scaffolding that the soufflé climbs as it rises. Voilà.

You see, I have so far tried making only one kind of soufflé, a cheese, from, if you’ve forgotten, Julia Child’s basic recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cooking. She does say to coat the sides of the dish in butter, then parmesan cheese, yes. But she gives no explanation beyond that. Really, I thought this cheese coating analogous to adding flour to a cake pan’s coating, and I didn’t really pay that much attention to it. Also, I used parmesan I grated myself, and so it may have been moister and less fine a crumb, if you will, than it would have been if I’d bought it already grated.

Another tip: wipe the edge of the dish clean of butter/crumb/whatever, so that it doesn’t climb that last ¼ inch or so. This will help it not overflow the dish.

And so. That information alone was worth the price of admission. Never mind that we had three soufflés to devour: Grand Marnier, Cheese and Spinach, and Chocolate, with accompanying sauces, a lovely appetizer of parmesan and artichoke (way better than the usual artichoke concoctions I’ve previously had thrust upon me), and all the wine, basically, one could drink, which in my case was three glasses. All of this while drinking good wine, seated comfortably in a big kitchen, watching pleasant looking men prepare delicious food in an instructive manner. Gee, if I can do this regularly maybe I don’t need to find a husband after all, since such a scene is indeed part of my dream of the perfect relationship. Of course, I don’t get to kiss the chef-instructors after they feed me. A considerable down side. A man who can cook for me then kiss me? Me want. Que sera.

So I’m hoping to go to their pastry class, part of the Without a Book series, for I can use a little help with my crust confidence level, and this one is all about crust.

Maybe you want to take a class, too? Maybe we can go together? Here’s the url – scroll down for the schedule: http://www.vikingcookingschool.com/hc-cgi-bin/hc?templ=new_vcs/calendar.html&store=37.