Tom and I hosted a few friends for a backyard barbecue on Sunday evening, and I decided to try a dessert recipe from last week's Los Angeles Times food section. The paper ran an interesting article on frozen soufflés, describing them as "ice cream so light it seems to float off the spoon," and "sheer as chiffon and drop-dead elegant." I was intrigued because I had never even heard of a frozen soufflé before. But I have a lot of experience making ice cream, so I thought I would give it a try.
The article was accompanied by two recipes, and I decided to use the one for "frozen peach soufflé with raspberry sauce." Following the recipe, I cooked diced peaches (with the skin still on), sugar, and lemon juice until the peaches were soft, puréed the mixture, and then added in a packet of gelatin that had been dissolved in warm peach schnapps. I chilled the mixture overnight and it set up very firm, like a gelatin dessert. The next day, I whisked egg yolks and sugar over a double boiler until the mixture became pale and doubled in volume, and then I incorporated the peach gelatin. Fortunately, the heat of the egg-sugar mixture helped break up the peach gelatin so that it incorporated smoothly. The last additions to the soufflé mixture were whipped cream and beaten egg whites. The final mixture was very light-colored, with specks of peach color from the puréed skin of the fruit. I poured the mixture into individual ramekins to which I had taped a wax paper collar, allowing me to fill them above the rim. I sprinkled some toasted almonds on top and put them in the freezer to firm up.
When I took the soufflés out of the freezer and removed the wax paper collars, they really did have the appearance of a baked soufflé, with the ice cream rising far above the top of the ramekins. But these can't pass as baked soufflés for long! Straight out of the freezer, they were very hard, so much so that our dinner guests couldn't make any headway no matter how diligently they chipped away with their spoons. After a short wait, they softened enough to be scoopable. They had a very light peach flavor, with a texture very similar to ice cream, but slightly less creamy. The toasted almonds on top were fantastic, and a couple of people thought the soufflés had an underlying pistachio flavor. I did serve the soufflés with the raspberry sauce included in the recipe (puréed and strained frozen raspberries, sugar, and lemon juice), but I thought that the strong flavor of the sauce overwhelmed the delicate peach flavor of the soufflés. I preferred mine sauceless.
After everyone finished with dessert, I noticed something slightly surprising. The uneaten bits left in the ramekins didn't melt. Not even after a few hours outside on a warm summer day, as the dinner conversation carried on long past the final course. No doubt this was due to the gelatin in the soufflé batter, but I still thought it was slightly bizarre. The frozen soufflé looks like a baked soufflé, tastes like ice cream, and doesn't melt. It's a bit of a culinary magic trick!
The soufflés were beautiful and their striking appearance generated high expectations... But while they were tasty enough, the flavor didn't quite live up to their promise. For all of their bells and whistles, frozen soufflés are still just ice cream!
Recipe: "Frozen peach soufflé with raspberry sauce" from the Los Angeles Times, July 15, 2009.
The article was accompanied by two recipes, and I decided to use the one for "frozen peach soufflé with raspberry sauce." Following the recipe, I cooked diced peaches (with the skin still on), sugar, and lemon juice until the peaches were soft, puréed the mixture, and then added in a packet of gelatin that had been dissolved in warm peach schnapps. I chilled the mixture overnight and it set up very firm, like a gelatin dessert. The next day, I whisked egg yolks and sugar over a double boiler until the mixture became pale and doubled in volume, and then I incorporated the peach gelatin. Fortunately, the heat of the egg-sugar mixture helped break up the peach gelatin so that it incorporated smoothly. The last additions to the soufflé mixture were whipped cream and beaten egg whites. The final mixture was very light-colored, with specks of peach color from the puréed skin of the fruit. I poured the mixture into individual ramekins to which I had taped a wax paper collar, allowing me to fill them above the rim. I sprinkled some toasted almonds on top and put them in the freezer to firm up.
When I took the soufflés out of the freezer and removed the wax paper collars, they really did have the appearance of a baked soufflé, with the ice cream rising far above the top of the ramekins. But these can't pass as baked soufflés for long! Straight out of the freezer, they were very hard, so much so that our dinner guests couldn't make any headway no matter how diligently they chipped away with their spoons. After a short wait, they softened enough to be scoopable. They had a very light peach flavor, with a texture very similar to ice cream, but slightly less creamy. The toasted almonds on top were fantastic, and a couple of people thought the soufflés had an underlying pistachio flavor. I did serve the soufflés with the raspberry sauce included in the recipe (puréed and strained frozen raspberries, sugar, and lemon juice), but I thought that the strong flavor of the sauce overwhelmed the delicate peach flavor of the soufflés. I preferred mine sauceless.
After everyone finished with dessert, I noticed something slightly surprising. The uneaten bits left in the ramekins didn't melt. Not even after a few hours outside on a warm summer day, as the dinner conversation carried on long past the final course. No doubt this was due to the gelatin in the soufflé batter, but I still thought it was slightly bizarre. The frozen soufflé looks like a baked soufflé, tastes like ice cream, and doesn't melt. It's a bit of a culinary magic trick!
The soufflés were beautiful and their striking appearance generated high expectations... But while they were tasty enough, the flavor didn't quite live up to their promise. For all of their bells and whistles, frozen soufflés are still just ice cream!
Recipe: "Frozen peach soufflé with raspberry sauce" from the Los Angeles Times, July 15, 2009.
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