Chocolate Soufflé – Perfect for Your Valentine (Unless I’m Your Valentine)

With everybody’s favorite made-up holiday right around the corner, I thought I would finally post a chocolate soufflé. I’m not sure what took so long, other than the fact that soufflés have never been my favorite delivery system for chocolate.

Sure, they’re visually impressive, which is key for a special occasion dessert, but the chocolate does get a bit diluted by all those air bubbles. Also, I’ve always been much more of a cold, or room-temp chocolate dessert guy, and never gone nuts for things like lava cakes, and baked puddings.

Having said that, I’m sure I’m in the minority, and you and your special someone will enjoy these just fine. I developed this recipe for two, since that makes a lot of sense, but it should scale up without issue. If you want to add some type of liquor to this, you can add it to the milk and flour mixture after you turn off the heat.

Rum works beautiful, as does coffee, orange, or raspberry liqueur.  Above and beyond that, if you really want to impress your date, you could also whip up a sauce to serve along side. I’m thinking either a berry puree, or maybe a coffee crème anglaise would pair perfectly. Either way, sauced or not, I really hope you give this a try soon, and it gets you lots of compliments. Enjoy!

Chocolate soufflé for two 5-oz ramekins):
melted butter and sugar to prep ramekins

1 tablespoon butter  

1 tablespoon flour

1/4 cup plus 1 teaspoon cold milk

pinch salt

pinch cayenne

2 ounces dark chocolate (I like something around 70%)

1 large egg yolk

2 large egg whites

pinch cream of tartar (you can use a few drops of lemon juice or vinegar instead)

1 tablespoon white sugar, added in 3 additions