Experiment 1: Chocolate Soufflé (A.K.A. Ju Goo Lik Soh Foo Lai)

A soufflé is... a light, fluffy, baked cake made with egg yolks and beaten egg whites combined with various other ingredients and served as a savory 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. But also a good description of my uncle Marty after he got into the peanut butter despite his allergy. Interestingly, the Chinese term for the dish translates roughly into "Sky Clouds Wrestling Sexually" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Souffl%C3%A9)

Purpose
Starting this blog out with a chocolate soufflé seemed like a good idea at the time. They look so cute, and come on, who wouldn't like a chocolate soufflé? :P

Hypothesis
If I can figure out what "folding" is, then I won't screw this recipe up too too much.

Materials

• Butter
• 1/3 cup sugar plus additional for sprinkling
• 5 ounces bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened), chopped
• 3 large egg yolks at room temperature
• 6 large egg whites
• 4 ceramic souffle dish
• 1 40oz bottle of grain alcohol (not pictured)

Procedure

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees F
• Generously butter soufflé dish and sprinkle with sugar, knocking out excess
• Melt chocolate in a metal bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water, stirring occasionally until smooth
• Take a swig of that sweet, sweet liquor and wonder at what exact point your life became boring
• Remove bowl of melted chocolate from heat and stir in yolks (*mixture will stiffen)
• Beat egg whites with a pinch of salt in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until they hold soft peaks
• Beat egg whites at high speed until whites just hold stiff peaks
• Stir about 1 cup whites into the chocolate mixture to lighten, then add mixture to remaining whites, folding gently but thoroughly
• Spoon into soufflé dish and run the end of your thumb around inside edge of soufflé dish (*this will help soufflé rise evenly)
• Bake in middle of oven (about 24 to 26 minutes) until puffed and crusted on top, but still jiggly in centre (like Richard Simmons!)
• Serve immediately or, after crying into your half empty bottle of booze
  

Test Subjects

• WCh, PCh, KCh, ICh, DCh, DBo, MCh

Outcome
The test subjects ate the soufflés, nobody got sick or made "EWWWW" faces, therefore, I believe that our first chocolate soufflé was a success! :)