Chocolate Souffle

Chocolate souffle has quickly risen as our favorite dessert here. I think there's a stigma attached to it - people think it's about the most difficult recipe to conquer. Truthfully, if you have some patience, it is very easy. Here's how the whole deal works.

Ingredients

• 5-6oz bittersweet chocolate
• 1/3 cup white sugar + a little more
• A bit of butter
  
• 6 eggs
• Heavy whipping cream
• Vanilla (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 375.
2. So for this recipe, you're going to need a 5-6 cup ramekin, or other vertical walled ceramic or glass baking dish. I included a picture of a ramekin above.
3. Melt about 2 tablespoons of butter in the ramekin. Once the butter is melted, pick up the ramekin and rotate it until it completely covers the inside of the dish.
4. Dump some sugar inside, and rotate again until a light coat of sugar covers all of the butter.
5. Separate out the eggs - put 6 eggs whites in a large mixing bowl, and put 3 egg yolks in a small prep bowl.
6. Whip the egg whites with an electric mixer until they hold soft peaks (this will make sense when you see it happen). You can do this step with a hand-held whisk, but it will take about 20 minutes of hard work. That's almost always the way I do it, because I can never find a mixer.
7. Add in 1/3 cup sugar, and beat again until they hold stiff peaks.
8. Use a double boiler setup to slowly melt the chocolate. When the chocolate is about 90% melted, pull it off the heat. When all of the chocolate has melted, mix in the egg yolks.
9. Mix about 1 cup of the egg white mixture in with the chocolate.
10. VERY LIGHTLY fold in chocolate mix to the egg mix, using either a spatula or a whisk. It doesn't have to be completely mixed in, but the mixture should be chocolate brown.
11. Pour all of this into your prepared ramekin.
12. Bake for 22-24 minutes, until the top of the souffle is baked, but there's still a good deal of jiggle left in the rest.
13. While this is baking, I highly suggest making some housemade whipped cream. It's super simple - combine some heavy whipping cream, a bit of vanilla, and a bit of sugar. Beat with your mixer or whisk until you've got whipped cream.
14. Once the souffle is complete, use two large spoons to serve it onto plates, along with a good sized dollop of whipped cream.

That's it! Nice and easy chocolate souffle.