Hairy Bikers recipe: Chocolate and Orange Soufflés
1st Jan 2015 Recipes
This is a classy number. Dark chocolate and orange are a favourite combo and you could also make these with orange-flavoured choc. You’ll need four 150ml ramekins or six smaller ones.
Ingredients
(Serves 4 to 6)
- 25g butter, softened, for greasing
- 1 tbsp caster sugar, for dusting
- 150ml whole milk
- 100ml double cream
- 150g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
- Grated zest of 1 orange
- 3 large eggs, separated
- 75g caster sugar
- 15g cornflour
- 15g plain flour
- 10g cocoa
Grand Marnier sauce
- 300ml orange juice
- Juice of ½ lemon
- 100g sugar
- 2 tbsp Grand Marnier
Method
- First, prepare the ramekins. Rub softened butter over the insides of the ramekins, then use a pastry brush to go over it with upward strokes; this helps the soufflés rise. Dust the insides with the sugar until well coated. Leave the ramekins in the freezer until you need them.
- Put the milk in a saucepan and warm it almost to boiling point. Remove the pan from the heat and set it aside. In a separate pan, heat the cream and when it is blood temperature, remove the pan from the heat and add the chocolate. Let the chocolate melt completely, then beat until thick and glossy. Stir in the orange zest and set the mixture aside to cool.
- Whisk the yolks with 50g of the sugar until creamy. Sieve the cornflour, plain flour and cocoa into a bowl, then sprinkle this mixture over the egg yolks and sugar and beat until smooth. Pour the milk over the egg and sugar mixture, stirring constantly, then tip it all back into the saucepan. Stir over a low heat until the mixture has thickened to a custard, then remove the pan from the heat and leave to cool, whisking regularly to make sure it doesn’t develop a skin. Beat in the chocolate and cream mixture.
- Preheat the oven to 190°C/Fan 170°C/Gas 5 and put a baking tray in the oven to heat up.
- Whisk the egg whites to the soft peak stage, then start beating in the remaining sugar a teaspoon at a time until the mixture is stiff and glossy. Add the egg whites to the chocolate mixture a third at a time, folding it in with a metal spoon as carefully as you can so you don’t lose too much volume and incorporating it fully before adding the next lot.
- Divide the mixture between the ramekins, making sure each is filled to the top, then scrape a palette knife over the top to make it perfectly flat. Run your finger around the rim of each ramekin to create a small groove round the top. This will help the soufflés to rise evenly.
- Put the ramekins on the preheated baking tray and bake for 16–18 minutes (depending on the size of your ramekins) until well risen with a slight wobble in the middle. You should get a good rise of at least 3–4cm.
- For the sauce, put the orange juice, lemon juice and sugar into a saucepan. Heat gently, stirring constantly until the sugar has dissolved, then turn up the heat a little and simmer for a few minutes until it is syrupy—it will thicken a little more as it cools. Stir in the Grand Marnier, a tablespoon at a time. Serve the soufflés immediately with the sauce on the side to pour into the centre.
Recipe from The Hairy Bikers' Chicken and Egg by Si King and Dave Myers, published by Orion in hardback at £22, eBook £12.99.
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Photography credit: Andrew Hayes-Watkins
