Shoddy Souffle

I hate souffles.

The souffle (no, no accent; I can't be bothered to figure out how to type one) is a creation that inspires well-documented fear in amateur cooks, ostensibly because experienced ones have shared their horror stories regarding the fluffy disastor-in-waiting. A "good" souffle is many things: poofy, yet rich; airy, yet filling; springy, yet cohesive; and, perhaps most importantly, challenging, yet delicious.

Inspired by my friend Shari's gentle prodding (or insistent demand, depending on who you ask) that I attempt a recipe she discovered, I took it upon myself to make my first attempt at this mysterious juxtaposition of conflicting descriptions. Naturally, I had to try a "non-traditional" souffle recipe as my first creation, and just as naturally, it was a miserable mess, and met none of the criteria I so painstakingly listed in the paragraph above. Never one to turn my back on a delightful "disaster post", I now proudly display my failed dish of banana pudding and bubbles in order that these mistakes never be made again. I must warn you, however, that some of the images (including the one at the top of this post) contain graphic depictions of unappetizing culinary creations, and as such, should not be viewed while a) eating, b) in the dark, alone, c) pregnant, or d) a master chef.

Banana Souffle

(Stolen from Tasty Eats At Home )

Ingredients

2 ripe bananas, mashed

3tbsp water

1/3c plus 1tbsp sugar

1/2tsp cornstarch

pinch of cinnamon

4 egg whites

pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 400F

Procedure

I like to get all the required ingredients together so I can look at them prior to starting. That way, when I forget something, I can see that it was because I forgot it in the first place and not because kitchen gnomes came in and stole the salt.

Prior to attempting the preparation, butter and sugar 4 ramekins (or, in my case, a single souffle dish) and set aside. Mix the water and the 1/3c sugar in a small saucepan and set over medium-high heat until it reaches a boil. In the meanttime, mash the hell out of those bananas (or cheat, and use a food processor, blender. Cheater.) and mix the cinnamon and corn starch into the mashed goo. Verify that the sugar has dissolved in the water and remove the saucepan from the heat. Stir the banana sludge into the syrup until thoroughly incorporated and set aside to cool.

The recipe's creator notes here, and I re-emphasize: make sure the mixture cools to room temperature before proceeding. It shouldn't take long, but if it's overly warm, it'll break apart the whipped egg whites and screw up your bubbles later on.

While the mixture is cooling, add the egg whites to a mixing bowl (ideally the bowl that goes with your stand mixer. ... What? I can cheat too. Shut up!) and mix until slightly frothy. Add the salt and continue mixing until the "soft peaks" stage is reached. Be sure not to overmix! When finished, bring the banana slime back to the equation and set it alongside the egg whites, just so they know who's boss.

Despite my intimidation technique, the ingredients didn't seem to take me very seriously, judging by my result.

Now that the ingredients have been put in their proper places, it is time to fold. Gently fold the egg whites into the brown goo, and don't over-fold: some white streaks are fine, as you want to retain that bubbly action for the rising portion later.

Hungry yet?

Pour the entire mixture into your ramekins (or souffle) and place them (it) into the oven. After it's in, reduce the heat to 375F and bake for 10-12 minutes, or until it has puffed upwards and the top has browned.

Not so ugly now, is it?

Lessons Learned

Lessons? An interesting question, seeing as how I'm not confident that any one thing went wrong. I suspect I under-mixed my eggs and had overly-soft peaks, as they did not mix well with the sludge portion of the dish. What is probably a greater problem is my use of a souffle instead of smaller ramekins; I suspect I should have modified the baking time to compensate, but even after trying that, it simply didn't want to set. I had a soup in the center and a beautifully browned exterior.

That said, I really don't have any problem eating dishes that look unappetizing, but I simply didn't care much for the flavor of this. The banana-cinnamon combination didn't work for me, and while I'm not a big fan of banana to start with (at least not as a stand-alone flavor), the combination created something that smelled particularly strong and tasted cloyingly sweet. The flavor problems I can probably simply blame on my palate, but the overall process simply didn't work for me. Next time I'll probably try a standard souffle recipe (utilizing egg yolks) and see if that causes similar problems. Given that I'm still adjusting to a new oven, uneven cooking temperature may be part of the issue as well. Long story short, I hate souffles.

Lemon Meringue Pie

As my mom can attest, I have had a lifelong infatuation with this particular dessert, and she has always been a fairly willing party to it, despite the fact that making lemon meringue pie is a good way to "dirty up every dish in the kitchen", to use her words. Consequently, I determined to put this theory to the test by making it as a surprise for mother's day when she came to visit. I realize that making one of *my* favorite desserts for a day dedicated to her is probably not the most thoughtful thing I could've done, but she likes it too, so everyone's happy.

From what I recall from my youth, making the pie was somewhere around 1-2 hours of actual work, excluding cleanup. Despite my best efforts at cleaning implements as I used them, this *did* indeed get a lot of different pans, bowls, and utensils dirty, but I didn't particularly mind this because it's truly a fascinating dish to make. It incorporates two very different baking staples (foam and custard) and thus provides a great deal for fledgling bakers to learn from. Of course, this also means there are plenty of potential stumbling blocks to encounter; thankfully, I didn't hit too many of these and those few that I did didn't have a huge impact on the final product.

But enough rambling. As with many of my recipes, I heisted my base from Good Eats, borrowing heavily from the actual episode ("I Pie") for the timing of certain steps. These instructions were particularly important for avoiding the soupy or watery problems with the custard that I have seen in any number of restaurant-produced versions.

Ingredients:
Lemon Custard
4 egg yolks (reserve whites for meringue)
1/3 cup cornstarch
1 1/2 cups water
1 1/3 cups sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup lemon juice
1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest

Meringue
4 egg whites
2 tablespoons sugar

1 Pie Crust (blind-baked)

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 375F (I always perform this step first, as it allows me to ensure that the oven retains much temperature after I open the door and let all the hot air out). The pie must be constructed in three distinct phases, and in a particular order: crust (if not using premade--I didn't), meringue, custard. The reasoning behind this is covered later.

After creating the crust, add the egg whites to the mixer bowl and hand-whip them a little bit to get the foam started (I did this with the whisk attachment for the mixer to save a utensil from being washed). Beat the eggs on medium-high speed until soft peaks form. Slowly add the sugar and continue beating until stiff peaks arise.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator.

For the custard, it is important to start off with a cold saucepan (I think a saucier would work better, but I don't have one). Add the water, corn starch, sugar, and salt and whisk until the ingredients are fairly well combined. The important part in this step is to make sure that the starch dissolves completely; otherwise, clumps may form in the final custard. Place the pan on medium heat and bring the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly. Once boiling is reached, the textural difference will be remarkable as the starch thickens things up to a fine goo. Boil for one minute, then remove the pan from the heat. Now comes the tricky part: tempering the egg yolks. In order to ensure that the yolks don't get heated too quickly, you must slowly bring up their temperature before adding them to the mixture. To do this, use the whisk to scoop up some of the sugar mixture and whisk it into the yolks. It's important that you don't add too much at once, which is why the whisk is used. Repeat this step until about half the sugar mixture has been added to the yolks, then dump the yolks into the pan (at this point, they are both diluted and warm enough to not cook prematurely).

Return the pan to the heat and reduce the temperature to low. Cook the mixture, stirring steadily, for at least another minute. This step eliminates an enzyme contained in the egg yolks that causes the watery condensation that destroys many a lemon meringue pie (this is due to their reaction with the corn starch, from my understanding; cooking them now effectively turns the enzyme off). Remove from the heat again and slowly stir in the lemon zest and juice. Note that it will take a few minutes to incorporate the juice, as the watery liquid will not want to mix with the fatty custard. Once the mix has reached a relatively creamy texture, pour it into the pie shell and set aside.

At this point, you *must* apply the meringue as soon as possible to ensure that the custard binds to it properly; otherwise, the meringue simply separates from the second layer and makes for a less presentable (although just as delicious) pie. Remove the meringue from the refrigerator and whisk it on the mixer (on medium-high speed) for a minute to "wake up" the meringue. Smear the meringue on top of the custard, making sure that it reaches all edges of the crust, lest it retract during cooking and not bind properly.

Bake for 12 minutes or until meringue is golden brown on the top. Remove and cool on a wire rack before serving.