Cheese Soufflé
Preheat your oven to 350F
So there’s a few steps to making this but it’s and elegant meal for two or three or as part of a meal for more and it’s not that hard to do.
I only have one size soufflé dish, it’s a little under 7” in diameter. But you could make this in mini soufflé dishes, I have nothing to offer except that you want to fill the dishes, no matter the size about 3/4 full at the most because there’s considerable lift.
First step; make a béchamel sauce. Usually it’s milk and light butter roux. My version is
1 c. HWC
2 Tbls. Unsalted butter
1 Tbls. Almond flour (fine is best)
1/4 tsp. Xantham Gum
Fresh grated nutmeg, salt & white pepper
Melt the butter in a heavy sauce pan. Mix the almond flour and Xantham Gum. Add them to the melted butter on low heat and whisk with a wire whisk until it begins to color slightly and continue whisking while slowly adding the cream. When it starts to simmer and thicken like country milk gravy turn off the heat and add the seasonings to taste. Be careful not to over salt, the cheese adds saltiness too.
I used 6 extra large or you could use 7 large eggs.
Separate eggs with three bowls. Two small and one big enough to beat egg whites either by hand, cake mixer or stand mixer. Crack an egg in a small bowl, scoup out the yolk with your fingers and let the white drain off. Put the white in the big bowl and the yolk in a small one and so on till they’re all separated. There can be zero egg yolk in the whites or they won’t whip into hard peaks. If you mess one up save it for something else and make sure your bowl is clean again before continuing.
I used a whisk and a round bottom copper egg bowl for only egg whites specifically but use whatever you have. Add 1 tsp. of lemon juice to the egg whites. They have to hold peaks so whisk them to perfection like for lemon merengue pie. When they’re ready the béchamel sauce should be cooled down enough to add the egg yolks to it and mix well. You need to do this in a mixing bowl and you’re going to add
150 grams of cheese ( cheddar, gruyere, compté) whatever hard cheese you choose. Grated fine.
1-2 Tbls. Finely cut onion chives (optional)
The next step is taking a rubber spatula and adding a little egg whites to the béchamel/yolk/cheese blend, gently turning over and folding the egg whites into the mix. You should do this in 5-6 steps till it’s all incorporated, mixed and it should be light and have lots of air in it. Butter your soufflé dish and put the mix inside. Put in a preheated oven for about 45 minutes, maybe more. Check with a testing stick in the center. It will probably always have cheese but it should barely jiggle and the tester shouldn’t have raw egg on it. The top will brown and crack as it rises and bakes.
This from what I gathered from my eating companion was an extremely stable soufflé, very little fall after taken from the oven and structurally stable and moist and fluffy. I impressed myself even though I have never eaten or made a soufflé I felt like a pro!
Good luck, happy cooking and Bon Appetit 
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