Chocolate Souffle Trial no.3 Final With Plating

Okay, I reached home at 5pm from work and decided to make another souffle for the last time here. I will look for the greatest souffle in town and share how it is here. Why am I so into making a good souffle ? Because souffle is so simple, yet so difficult. I will share some scientific theory that I learnt from a book here and maybe you will realize that making souffle is not as simple as a video demonstrate it. So here are the photos of the mise-en-place and final product. I didn't take a picture of the process because it's roughly the same as the last 2 trials. I include plating as for a practice for me too. This is the first time I do such a plating, so if it isn't nice, you should excuse me :D .  Here they are:

For the garnish I use a mixture of peanuts, dried guava, dried berries, and dried mango. They provide different colours improve texture and flavour. I personally believe that chocolate souffle should be accompanied by some acidic fruits so that it is not too heavy on the palate (correct me if I am wrong).

This was the plan of how the plating was going to be. Just a rough  idea. Here there are (from left to right) : Strawberry, dried mango, julienned dried berry, almond nuts (the price of 1 packet of it is also NUTS!), I don't know the name for the white nut sorry, julienned dried mango on top of dried berry, paysanned dried mango, and dried guava.

This is a lemon custard that I put inside a bottle. As I mentioned that I personally think that acidic sauce will be a good accompaniment. But my lemon custard was damn sour. The basic ingredients for the lemon custard that I made was: Lemon Juice, light cream ( I didn't use thick cream as I don't wanna make the whole dish very heavy on the palate ), egg yolk, fine sugar, cinnamon stick, and lemon zest.

This was my 2nd rough idea of the plating with the lemon custard underneath and sprinkled chopped peanuts.

This was the final product. For this recipe I purposely added a pinch of cayenne pepper to give a little beat of kick. Unfortunately, this time the souffle did not raise as well as the 2nd trial's. Anyway, on top of the souffle is almond peanut and some chopped peanuts. I actually wanted to put a spoonful of ice cream, but after I gave some thought about it, I refused. Ice cream is expensive, and turned out the total cost for the peanuts really sucked out all my cash.

I am not saying this plating is beautiful, I am still learning and this was my first time. I really hope someone out there will give me some advice how to improve on the plating. Personally, I feel that the plating is quite overcrowded.

Okay, so here are some scientific explanation of souffle. Let's begin from the basic ingredients:

1. Egg white - This is the most important ingredient that raise the souffle. So how does this happen ? When we whisk the egg white, we are creating a new structure. The proteins unfold and bond to each other. After some times, a foam will appear. This happens when the proteins unfold and creates a kind of reinforcement for the bubble walls. As we force the whisk trough the white, the whisk wires drag some of the liquid with them and create a pulling force that unfolds the compacted protein molecules. At the same time, air is also incorporated into the foam. All this unfolded proteins will gather where air and water meet, holding both water and air in place. This is why when beating is continued, the foam will double in volume.The stiffer the foam, the more air bubbles inside, and thus, will let the souffle to rise even higher. Overbeating will cause the foam to be grainy, losing volume, and separate into a dry forth and runny liquid.
2. Acid - acid plays a very important role as it helps to stabilize the foam in egg white during whisking. Acid will unfold the protein in the egg white further and create a network. The addition of acid boosts the number of free-floating hydrogen ions in the egg white, which makes it much harder for the sulfur-hydrogen groups to shed their own hydrogen and so slows the sulfure bonding down to a crawl. However, adding acid will increase the whisking time, but will give a better result and more stable against overwhipping.
3. Sugar - sugar helps foam making. Adding early in the process, it delays foaming and reduce the foam's volume and lightness.It is due to sugar's interference with the unfolding and bonding of the proteins.The reduciton of volume and lightness is caused by the syrupy sugar-egg mixture unable to spread into thin bubble walls. Sugar helps to improve the foam's stability by making the liquid thick and cohesive. In the oven, the dissolved sugar hangs onto the water molecules and so delays evaporation in high heat. Sugar is usually added into the egg white when the foam has formed or when the proteins have unfolded.

 There are several ingredients that we have to avoid in order to achieve the best souffle results. The must-avoid-ingredients are:

1. Salt - this bastard will increase the whipping time and decreases the foam's stability as well. It reduce the number of protein-protein bonds and weaken the overall structure. If salt is needed in the recipe, add it to the other components of the dish.
2. Fat - Fat in oil and egg yolk interfere with foaming in the same ways, by competing with the proteins for a place at the air-water interface without offering any structural reinforcement and by interfering with the bonding of the protein molecules. Any trace of oil or fat in the egg white will make you exercise even harder and longer, plus the foam will be unstable. However, they can be safely mixed with a finished foam, as how many recipes instruct.

When we bake the souffle, the higher the temperature, the higher the souffle will rise. However, it also means a greater subsequent overpressure and quicker fall. A thick souffle mix can't rise as easily as a thin, but also won't fall as easily and can resist the overpressure. How does souffle rise ? When the souffle is filled with small air bubbles, the heat causes the gases to expand and water to vaporize into steam, so the bubbles expand and raise the mix. After the souffle is cooked, cooling causes the bubble gases to contract, and souffle will shrink.Fun fact about souffle is that a fallen souffle will rise again if put back into the oven as those air bubbles are still in there. However you won't get as high a rise the second or third time around due to stiffened souffle mix and has less water available.

That is all for my post today. If there is any mistake or disagreement please comment and I really seek for advice for improvement. Thank you and enjoy.