How to bake a Chocolate Soufflé like Celebrity Chef Eric Lanlard

One sip of Cuvée Royale was all it took for Eric Lanlard to fall in love with the wines of Simonsig Wine Estate.Ever since then, Eric ensures that there’s always a couple of bottles of  Simonsig bubbly in his wine cellar back home and a visit to this iconic Stellenbosch wine estate was therefore on top of the celebrity chef’s to-do list, during a recent visit to South Africa.

Celebrity Chef Eric Lanlard – As sweet on the eye as his decadent chocolate treats on the tongue!

Smitten fans and chocoholics who were lucky enough to attend the luncheon, where the Baking Mad star teamed up with the wine estate’s head chef, Lucas Carstens, enjoyed a cocoa-inspired menu that satisfied the sweetest of sweet tooths, while Eric showed the guests how to bake a chocolate soufflé.

Here are some of Eric’s baking tips and his chocolate soufflé recipe, straight from the pages of Chocolat, his brand new cookbook.

Ingredients

Serves: 6
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes

You will need
Unsalted butter, for greasing
125g dark chocolate, roughly chopped – Tip: Use a good quality chocolate!
2 tsp dark rum
2 tbsp crème fraîche
4 eggs, separated, plus 2 egg whites
Pinch of salt
Icing sugar, for dusting

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C and grease six ramekin dishes. Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water, making sure the surface of the water does not touch the bowl. Stir in the rum. Remove from the heat and add the crème fraîche, then the egg yolks.

2. In a large, clean, dry bowl, whisk all the egg whites and the salt to soft peaks. Fold one-quarter of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture, then fold in the remaining whites.

3. Fill the prepared ramekins to the top with the mixture, then clean the rims using your finger and thumb. Place on a baking sheet and bake in the oven for 10 to 12 minutes, or until nicely risen. Dust with icing sugar and serve immediately.

TIP
For a delicious party trick, serve your soufflés with an ice-cream drop. Before you make the soufflés, scoop out six balls of good-quality vanilla ice cream and place on a freezer-proof plate. Keep in the freezer until ready to serve. When serving the soufflés at the table, drop an ice-cream ball into each soufflé.

Take a look at the photos of the event:

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