Souffle! *A Home Entry*

A soufflé is a light, fluffy, baked dish made with egg yolks and beaten egg whites combined with various other ingredients and served as a main dish or sweetened as a dessert. The word soufflé is the past participle of the French verb souffler which means "to blow up" or more loosely "puff up" — an apt description of what happens to this combination of custard and egg whites.

I have never eaten a soufflé before much less actually trying to make a soufflé. All my knowledge of soufflés was what I saw on television sitcoms and they always were of the fallen variety. What I love about soufflés is that they join their cousins the banana peel, the cream pies and the sugar lump (Bugs: How many lumps would you like with that? Stupid Lion: Oh…3 or 4) as being food types that are always met with disaster. A comedy of errors I suppose. I figured that if I were to make something new, I best try the one thing that actors posing as cooks have never managed to accomplish.

Before there was Dr. Phil, Betty Crocker was backbone of the housewife mentality. I used her recipe, ‘Classic Cheese Soufflé’ as a starter point. I figured that if Betty Crocker didn’t know how to make a soufflé, no one would.

These are the ingredients. Thankfully we had everything in the house already except for the Cream of Tartar and Ground Mustard. The chances of me using the Cream of Tartar and Ground Mustard again are very slim. So slim in fact that 6 years from now I will need Cream of Tartar for something and go out and buy it again because I would figure that there would be no way that I actually owned Cream of Tartar.

So I began. Kevin helped by making the tin foil strip (why a tin foil strip? I have no idea, ask Betty Crocker) and separating the eggs. I actually made Kevin hold this yolk here for a while so I could take a picture. I might have stalled a bit as it’s funny watching someone stand uncomfortably holding a slimy yolk in their hands. Sorry Kevin.

Everything started off fine. Butter melted, flour stirred in, everything bubbled successfully. I started to think to myself what idiots actors posing as cooks must be not to find this simple.

But then I added the milk and cheese and something went horribly wrong. Betty Crocker kept alluding to this boiling that the milk and cheese would do. I stirred and stirred but it just got thicker and thicker until it was like bread dough, no boiling. Of course this is when Kevin’s brother, Robert (who is a great cook by the way), decides to call. I believe I was mumbling, “Oh, something’s not right here. Kevin! Look at this, is this suppose to look like this? I think I screwed something up. Oh man…”

Not wanting to stop at this point, I went ahead and started mixing the egg whites and yolks. I ‘folded’ the eggs into the cheese dough per Betty Crocker and carefully poured the mixture into the casserole dish. Betty Crocker used the word ‘carefully’ a lot in this recipe by the way.

I set the timer for 50 minutes and started to watch “I Love Lucy” while I waited. It seemed appropriate.

50 minutes later and I had an unfallen soufflé!

That is, until I cut into it. It also wasn’t very fluffy. In fact, it was kind of wet, like scrambled eggs. Kevin and I ate it anyway…it wasn’t too bad, but nothing I’d make again. Since I’m pretty sure that I screwed up somewhere, I’d like to try a real soufflé for comparison sake.
Is Betty Crocker still alive? I’d like to speak to her about this recipe. Boiling indeed.