Souffle Skills

If there's one cliche test of a chef's ability, it's the souffle. Will it rise? Will it collapse? Will it be too eggy? Too dry? Gordon sneers at such worries. Gordon puts it in the Basic Skills chapter.



This is the kind of cooking that we generally fail at: taking a pile of ingredients and turning them into more than the sum of their parts through the mysterious alchemical process that is baking.



This time, though, we were paying attention. We like us some souffle, and besides which, this was a challenge. After the cake debacle we couldn't afford another disappointment.



Also, chocolate.



This recipe calls for the eggs' yolks and whites to be separated, whisked independently, and then folded together. Why? Alchemy!



Or maybe it was just so that we could see the beauty inherent in the soft peaks of whipped egg whites.



Once the eggs are recombined, it's into the chocolate-lined ramekins, into the oven, and into the realm of uncertainty. Fingers crossed, now we can but hope.



And sometimes, just sometimes, hope is enough, and your souffle rises, and it is beautiful.



And sometimes, though you might not know what you've done to deserve it, it might not just rise, it might also be epically delicious. But hey, it's just a basic skill.