Recipe: Flourless chocolate souffle

melt the chocolate butter and cream

This is a beautifully rich chocolate souffle that's also gluten free!  There are a lot of "flourless" chocolate cake recipes that in fact have a tiny bit of flour in them - this is the real deal.  The structure comes all from the whipping and foaming of the egg whites and yolks.  It does work well as a "twice cooked" souffle, meaning you can prep them ahead and reheat them to serve them, but the results are generally best when you serve on the first bake.  The 20 minute bake (and the aroma coming from the oven) time will fill your guests with anticipation and make the souffles all the more delicious when they finally get to eat them.  Taking a cue from the "flourless" cakes out there, since you know this recipe works on its own, you can opt to sift and fold in a small bit of flour at the end of the mixing process if you want to add a little more structure.  This recipe will give you 11 nice sized souffles - you can stretch to 12, but try to find smaller dishes than the ones in the pictures.

whip the whites

You will need:

340g / 12oz                dark chocolate - chopped

57g / 2oz                    butter - room temperature (plus more to coat the ramekins)

125ml / 1/2C              cream

5                                 eggs

57g / 2oz                    sugar (plus more to coat the ramekins)

Method:

cream the yolks

 - set the oven to 166C / 330F

 - take the room temperature butter and coat the  11 ramekins

 - dust the buttered ramekins with sugar and put in the fridge to set up

 - combine the chopped chocolate, 2oz of butter and cream and warm in the microwave - not too hot

 - stir with a spatula to emulsify then set aside

 - divide 4 of the eggs into yolks and whites

 - whip the 4 whites to medium peak, then add 1oz of the sugar, whip a bit more and set aside

 - put the 4 yolks, the 1 remaining egg and the other 1oz of sugar in the mixer and cream

 - cream it some more - give 'em hell

mix the chocolate into the yolks

 - by now the chocolate mix should be a bit cooler, but still warm - mix it with the creamed yolks

 - gently fold in the whites (you can use a whisk if you are gentle - it's the same motion as a spatula)

 - divide the batter evenly between the ramekins

 - bake 20 minutes until tops start to open - rotate partway through if your oven doesn't heat evenly

 - serve immediately, or cool down and reheat later

fold in the whites

fill the dishes and bake

yum!