Cheese Souffle

The word soufflé used to strike terror in the heart of cooks far and wide. I never got that memo, though, and one of the first things I ever baked was a chocolate soufflé when I was less than sixteen years old, from my mother’s copy of The Settlement Cookbook, the 1951 edition. The ingredient list is pretty concise; looking at the book now, there are two chocolate soufflé recipes in it – one with four ingredients and the other with six.

The author explains how to put the soufflés together with only four or five concise sentences. There are no mixing bowl or baking dish sizes given, and chocolate is just listed as “chocolate.” There’s no mention of whether it’s bittersweet, semisweet, or unsweetened chocolate. (There are also no substitutions for any ingredients offered, and storage instructions weren’t included, presumably because people just figured that out for themselves.) It’s fascinating how times have changed in terms of how recipes are written today.

Back in those days, we didn’t have a soufflé mold in our suburban American kitchen. We had an assortment of Pyrex glass baking dishes and measuring cups. Somehow, my little brain (at the time, which hopefully has grown since then) had figured out that a straight-sided dish might be best for a soufflé, so I used a Pyrex measuring cup to bake the soufflé in, guessing at the size I should use. My thirteen-year-old head must’ve either been spinning, or I just used whatever was available without giving it a second thought. My guess is that it was the latter. In spite of all the vagarities that wouldn’t pass muster today, it came out really well.

Even though I now have a collection of French soufflé molds I’ve picked up at flea markets, these days I prefer to use an oven-proof shallow baking dish when I make a soufflé. Why? Because I like the ratio of crust-to-filling better in a wider dish, and the soufflé also tends to bake more evenly, and is easier to serve as well.

(FYI: My recipe for a Chocolate Soufflé baked in a gratin-style baking dish, is in my book L’Appart and I have a recipe for Individual Double-Chocolate Soufflés, baked in ramekins, in The Great Book of Chocolate.)

If you want to use a soufflé mold, or a Pyrex measuring cup, for this, you can. You’ll just need to toggle the baking time a bit, using visual and tactile clues to check for doneness. Soufflés aren’t as fussy as you think but when the top starts to brown, give it a very gentle jiggle; if it moves a lot and seems liquidy, it’s probably not done. If it moves mostly in the center, but the area a few inches close to the rim of the dish is relatively firm, it’s probably done.

But everyone is different. Some people like soufflés very runny and underbaked. I worked a waiter like that, who insisted that customers preferred them that way. In reality, though, I suspect he liked them that way more than the customers. (Or, he liked asserting himself over me.)

Either way, soufflés aren’t hard to make and the only skill required is knowing that you should gently, but with purpose, fold the egg whites into the base. You don’t want to stir the heck out of them so they lose their volume. A few thin, visible streaks of egg whites are better than an overfolded mixture. (Less than what is shown above.) When baked, you won’t notice those.

Cheese soufflé makes a wonderful lunch or dinner with nothing more than a green salad to go alongside. I like to add a handful of aromatic herbs, which, like the cheese, will change the flavor depending on which you use. Here I used chives, but tarragon and chervil are also favorites that I sometimes add.