Spicy chocolate soufflé with orange caramel sauce!

Soufflé, another creation of the French cuisine, the word means puffed-up, both savoury and sweet versions of soufflé go back to the 18 century.

I think many feel that soufflés are very hard to make, however, it is not true. Their preparation is technical and requires being exact with your measurements but the process is relatively straightforward and the rewards is worth while. 

One of my favorites is chocolate soufflé, which is the recipe I´m sharing today, but will be making other recipes, savory and sweet.

Chocolate is a wonderful ingredient, it is so versatile that you can even find it in savory recipes. Each and everyone of us loves chocolate one way or another, whether it is bitter, semi-sweet, white, with fruits, with nuts, with spices...the choices are endless. 

One of may favorite pairings with chocolate is both sweet, fruity and spicy. In fact, I love the combination of chocolate with chillies and oranges. This recipe combines all these flavors in a wonderful way.

For the soufflé you need: (enough for 4 tall ramequins or 5 short ones, mine are 7 x 7 cm)

• 75 g dark chocolate (55%)
• 10 g  corn starch
• teaspoon cocoa powder
• 50 g vanilla infused sugar (or normal sugar)
• 1 tsp coffee liquer or vanilla essence
• 2 eggs separated while cold then brought to room temperature
• 100 ml of milk
• 10 g unsalted butter
• Red chili pepper (1 or 2)
• 1 tsp zest of orange

The first thing you want to do is to prepare your ramequins. With a soft brush coat the ramequins with softened butter brushing the sides starting from the bottom to reach the top. Coat the brushed ramequins with sugar, making sure the sugar adheres well to all the sides of the ramequins. The ramequins should be placed in the fridge while you go through the remaining steps of the recipe.

Combine the flour and cocoa powder, add the milk and mix. Heat the mixture on a gentle flame, add half the sugar and mix well, in few minutes you will have a smooth silky and thick mixture.
When you reach this texture add the butter, chopped chocolate, the orange zest and the fine chopped chile, mix well add the egg yolks and whish vigorously, last add the liquer. Leave it to cool a bit.

The base of the soufflé is now ready, you need to prepare the ingredient that will give it the lightness and allow it to rise while baking: the egg whites. To do so, add a pinch of salt to the eggs whites and start slowly to beat them, when they become foamy, slowly increase the speed while you sprinkle the sugar, beat until soft peaks form, don´t over-mix, you don´t want to have firm peaks. The soft peaks will allow the trapped airbubbles to expand more  in the oven!

Now you need to combine the whites to the base. The first step requires that you lighten the base with some of the egg whites and mix until well combined. Then gently fold the remaining egg whites. Be careful when you fold the whites into the lightened base mix, as you don't want to be aggressive and lose the fluffy and aerated texture you worked hard to achieve.

You want your egg whites to form a beak or a hook!

Now you just need to fill the ramequin. You can fill them to the top or  just leave 2 or 3 cm empty, and bake in a preheated oven (180C) for 15 to 20 min until the top is no longer shiny.

You can serve the shoufflé as it is with a sprinkle of powdered sugar and whipped cream. I made orange caramel sauce to go with it: zesty tangy caramel to complement the spicy and intense chocolate flavor, just something to die for!

For the sauce you need:

• 70 g orange juice
• The zest of half an orange or the skin cut into julienne
• 30 g sugar

In a pan put the sugar and on a low heat let it caramelize, it will take about 5 min, when the sugar has dissolved and gained an amber color it is the time to add the orange followed by the zest. Let it simmer for just few minutes and you're done!

You want to serve these as soon as you take them out of the oven, in 5 minutes they will start collapsing, but they will taste great also when just warm or even cold!

I hope you try this soufflé recipe and I am sure you will enjoy it just as much as I did. This is a great recipe for a dinner with friends, especially if you want to impress them with your culinary skills.
Another great news is thatyou can freeze the soufflé, I made a try and you just need to take the ramequins out from the freezer, 4 to 5 hours before baking them, and you´ll get perfect results!!!