I’d never made a soufflé and I only remember eating a chocolate soufflé once. It was in New York City, when I flew in with a friend for a weekend to visit her brother. Our flight was delayed on the Friday night so we barely made it to the restaurant before closing. The restaurant offered chocolate soufflé for dessert but it had to be ordered at the same time as your meal, because it takes so long to cook. I distinctly remember ordering chocolate soufflé for dessert – but I have zero memory of eating it. I bet it was heavenly.

Someday I’ll make a chocolate soufflé but for my Top 40, I went with cheese.

Soufflé has a mythology around it of staying quiet and not banging things or stomping in the house, or else the soufflé will fall. (Yes, everything I know about soufflé I learned from  TV!). Although I’d never read a recipe for soufflé, it seemed like it should be a difficult but rewarding process.

But it turns out soufflé, like most recipes, is quite easy once you review the recipe and get going.

I also decided that cheese soufflé is a super-fancy scrambled egg with cheese.

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons finely grated Parmesan cheese
1 cup whole milk
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 tablespoons unbleached all purpose flour
½ teaspoon paprika
½ teaspoon salt
Pinch of ground nutmeg
4 large egg yolks
5 large egg whites
1 cup (packed) coarsely grated Gruyere cheese (but I used Asiago)

Simplified recipe:
Melt the butter, add the flour, add the milk pre-heated to steaming.
Take off heat and add egg yolks one at a time. Add seasonings. Cool to lukewarm.
Beat egg whites until stiff but not dry.
Fold egg whites into egg yolk concoction, along with cheese.
Bake for 25 minutes. Do not open oven door for the first 20 minutes.

Separating eggs is messy but easy, and for the rest I just did as I was told. I wasn’t sure if I’d beaten the egg whites long enough, because what does ‘stiff but not dry’ mean? But the soufflés – two individual and the rest in a springform pan since I didn’t have a soufflé dish – rose to perfection.

They also fell shortly after they started to cool on the stovetop.

They tasted cheesy and fluffy, like the lightest, fluffiest eggs you’ve ever had. They were a bit like quiche, but without the lovely crust.

I enjoyed making the soufflés but I think chocolate might be more my style. Next time.

Scrape the egg-yolk concoction, with butter, flour, milk and seasonings, into a bowl and cool to lukewarm.

One of my mini cheese souffles, before it had time to ‘fall’. It was delicious.