You should always say "Yes" to souffles

One of the life lessons my mother has taught me is: "When someone asks you if want a souffle, you always say 'Yes'" I've never really questioned her about this philosophy. But if one were to ponder why, they would innevitably come to the conclusion that souffles are hard to make and therefore very special.
I am a list maker. so it should come as no surprise that I have a "Life Goals" list and that on this list I have the goal of learning to make the perfect souffle.

In the past, whenever I thought about taking on this daunting task, I was immediately reminded of Audrey Hepburn in the movie Sabrina. To escape her love woes, she moves to Paris and goes to cooking school. They learn to crack an egg and make hollandaise sauce but every student in the film flunks the souffle, especially Sabrina because she forgets to turn on the oven. But souffle related problems are usually a bit trickier to remedy than just remembering to turn on the oven.

I've made this souffle recipe twice this week and I would have it again tonight if I hadn't already committed myself to a giant bowl of strawberries and cream. Give it a go and I promise you won't regret it-

Raspberry Souffles with White Chocolate Whipped Cream

Makes 4 ramekins

For the Souffles:

• 6oz barquette of raspberries (or about a heaping 3/4 cup)
  
• 1/3 cup sugar + 2 Tblsp seperate
  
• 2 Tblsp cornstarch
  
• 2 eggs
  
• Butter

Preheat the oven to 200C degrees

In the original recipe, you would combine the raspberries and 2 tblsp sugar in a food processor, but I mashed them through a sieve and that seemed to work quite well.

Once you have that lovely fuschia juice, put in a saucpan on a medium heat and add the cornstarch while whisking. Make sure it doesn't clump!

This pudding like mixture can be made 2 hous in advance and set to cool. I left a batch in the fridge over night and it tasted just as good the next day. Either way, you want to make sure the mixture is at room temperature when you use it.

Crack the egg whites into a large bowl and mix them with a hand mixer until stiff peaks form. Add 1/3 cup sugar in small batches until combined without drying out the eggs.

Take about a third of the egg whites and mix it into the raspberry mixture. Fold the mixture back into the remaining egg whites

Butter the four ramekins and coat the insides with sugar. Seperate equally and bake for about 12 minutes or until the tops are golden.

For the White Chocolate Whipped Cream:

• 1 bar of white chocolate
  
• 1 pot of double cream (284ml)
  

Melt the chocolate in large bowl over a boiling pot of water. Let it cool a bit and then add the cream and whip it up!

A lovely delicious mess