A step by step guide to making a show stopping Julia Child cheese souffle, with Gruyere and Parmigiano and a touch of spice.
Welcome to my first installment into the new Little Ferraro Kitchen series, featuring the Queen of the Kitchen, Julia Child. I will be making and blogging 1 recipe of hers per week, preferably on Fridays (so you can cook it over the weekend) with detailed step by step photos and cooking explanations.
As you can see, I have been channeling Julia recently and ever since I received her cook book Mastering the Art of French Cooking, I have been a tad obsessed.
Mastering the Art of French Cooking is just as the title dictates. Julia not only offers detailed explanations of the recipe steps, but deeply illustrates the importance cooking techniques, what equipment to use and how and what to look for when buying ingredients. Honestly, this is the cooking Bible!
As I was making this cheese souffle, I was imagining how Julia was doing it. I put on my apron and thought of her high-pitched, yet intoxicating voice. I carefully beat my eggs to a perfect “white sheen” as she spoke of and made sure to not over beat them. This was the intimidating part, the egg whites. However, Julia did not disappoint and I was met with the perfect white sheen that she specifically illustrated.
Called “Souffle Au Fromage” in French is a glorious combination of a simple thickened white sauce paired with a flavorful cheese. Stiffened egg whites are carefully folded in and when this masterpiece is concluded, the most beautiful creation will equate from your oven. A light, puffy burst of salty flavored cheese souffle. The inside of this mold is delicate and warm and the bottom and sides have crusted together forming a heavenly thick cheese layer.
Serves 4 for a 6 cup souffle mold
Method:
1) Start by buttering the mold and sprinkling with cheese. I chose to use Parmesan cheese because it grated finer than Gruyere. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2) I watched her You Tube video relentlessly and made sure I illustrated the foil-wrap well. This will make sure that your souffle will not spill over and will keep a high mold.
Tear a long enough piece of foil so that it is long enough to wrap around your mold.
Fold in half length-wise and butter one side. The buttered side will be the “inside” of the mold.
3) Wrap the foil around the mold. If your mold has little handles like mine does, cut small slits so the foil can fit. Secure lose top ends with paper clips.
4) Melt the 3Tb of butter in a sauce pan and stir in the flour with a spatula, cooking over medium heat until the butter and flour foam together for about 2 minutes without browning.
5) Remove from heat. When mixture has stopped bubbling, pour in all of the boiling milk at once and beat vigorously with a whisk until well blended.
6) Beat in the seasonings, cayenne or paprika, nutmeg and salt and pepper. Return to moderate heat and continue to stir with a whisk for another minute. The mixture will be very thick.
7) Remove from heat, take the egg yolks and beat 1 egg yolk into your white cream mixture one at a time until well incorporated.
Ah now for the egg whites! This is VERY important..so listen up!
8) In a clean, dry mixing bowl, begin to beat your egg whites with a whisk attachment on low speed. You will see that the egg whites will “break up” and begin to have a foamy consistency.
9) As the egg whites are foaming, increase the speed gradually and add cream of tartar and a pinch of salt. Increase the speed to fast and continue to beat for a few more minutes.
Do not leave your egg whites! Continue checking them. What you want to see are “traces” on the surface. The egg whites should also have a glossy white sheen and be able to be stiff and firm when holding with a whisk.
10) Once the egg whites are done, don’t let them sit for long. Take a large spoonful and stir it into the cream mixture to lighten it.
11) Stir in all but about 1Tbl of the grated cheese into the cream mixture.
11) There is a technique with folding the rest of the egg whites. Take one large spoonful of the egg whites and using your spatula, cut down the middle and draw the spatula under, while scraping the side of the pan and turning the pan with the other hand. Basically, you folding under and to the side.
Continue with the rest of the egg whites. Be careful not to over fold. It’s OK if there are white streaks leftover.
12) Now your mixture is ready! Carefully pour your mixture into the prepared mold. It should be about 3/4 high. Tap the mild carefully to even it out and top with remaining Tb of cheese.
13) Place the cheese souffle on middle-back rack of pre-heated 400 degree oven.Once in, immediately turn down to 375 degrees.
Bake for exactly 30 minutes and DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT open the oven door ever during that 30 minutes!
14) The cheese souffle will have puffed up a few inches over the mold and will be a gorgeous golden brown on top. Insert a tester, if it comes out clean, it’s done.
15) To serve: Use 2 spoons and lightly puncture the top of the souffle. Don’t scoop from the bottom, that will deflate it, just spoon vertically.
Bon Appetit!
Julia Child’s Cheese Souffle
Prep Time
20 mins
Cook Time
30 mins
Total Time
50 mins
Course:
Main Course
Cuisine:
French
Servings: 4 servings
Ingredients
- 4 Tb of butter 1Tb for buttering mold
- 1 Tb grated Parmesan cheese for dusting mold
- 3 Tb flour
- 1 c milk lightly boiling
- 4 egg yolks
- 5 egg whites
- 1 c grated Gruyere cheese
- 1/2 tsp cayenne or paprika
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Pinch of nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp cream of tartar for the egg whites
Instructions
-
Start by buttering the mold and sprinkling with cheese. I chose to use Parmesan cheese because it grated finer than Gruyere. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
-
The foil wrap: This will make sure that your souffle will not spill over and will keep a high mold.
-
Tear a long enough piece of foil so that it is long enough to wrap around your mold. Fold in half length-wise and butter one side. The buttered side will be the "inside" of the mold. Wrap the foil around the mold. If your mold has little handles like mine does, cut small slits so the foil can fit. Secure lose top ends with paper clips.
-
Melt the 3Tb of butter in a sauce pan and stir in the flour with a spatula, cooking over medium heat until the butter and flour foam together for about 2 minutes without browning.
-
Remove from heat. When mixture has stopped bubbling, pour in all of the boiling milk at once and beat vigorously with a whisk until well blended.
-
Beat in the seasonings, cayenne or paprika, nutmeg and salt and pepper. Return to moderate heat and continue to stir with a whisk for another minute. The mixture will be very thick.
-
Remove from heat, take the egg yolks and beat 1 egg yolk into your white cream mixture one at a time until well incorporated.
-
Now for the egg whites. In a clean, dry mixing bowl, begin to beat your egg whites with a whisk attachment on low speed. You will see that the egg whites will "break up" and begin to have a foamy consistency.
-
As the egg whites are foaming, increase the speed gradually and add cream of tartar and a pinch of salt. Increase the speed to fast and continue to beat for a few more minutes.
-
Do not leave your egg whites! Continue checking them. What you want to see are "traces" on the surface. The egg whites should also have a glossy white sheen and be able to be stiff and firm when holding with a whisk.
-
Once the egg whites are done, don't let them sit for long. Take a large spoonful and stir it into the cream mixture to lighten it.
-
Stir in all but about 1Tbl of the grated cheese into the cream mixture.
-
There is a technique with folding the rest of the egg whites. Take one large spoonful of the egg whites and using your spatula, cut down the middle and draw the spatula under, while scraping the side of the pan and turning the pan with the other hand. Basically, you folding under and to the side.
-
Continue with the rest of the egg whites. Be careful not to over fold. It's OK if there are white streaks leftover. Now your mixture is ready! Carefully pour your mixture into the prepared mold. It should be about 3/4 high. Tap the mild carefully to even it out and top with remaining Tb of cheese.
-
Place on middle-back rack of pre-heated 400 degree oven.Once in, immediately turn down to 375 degrees.
-
Bake for exactly 30 minutes and DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT open the oven door ever during that 30 minutes!
-
The souffle will have puffed up a few inches over the mold and will be a gorgeous golden brown on top. Insert a tester, if it comes out clean, it's done.
-
To serve: Use 2 spoons and lightly puncture the top of the souffle. Don't scoop from the bottom, that will deflate it, just spoon vertically.
Congratulations magnificent souffle, I hope to do at least similar to yours!
Congratulations for your blog very nice and well done!
Beautiful souffle! I made mine gluten-free and it collapsed … still tasted great but not nearly as pretty as yours. I need to give it another go – it’s not a bad thing to eat eggs and cheese!
Lisa recently posted..Celebrating Julia Child’s 100th Birthday
I made this for breakfast today and it turned out great!! I used three 2-cup molds and didn’t need the tinfoil additions. I forgot to tap the molds and top with the cheese, but they were still DE-LISH! My picky 8 year old son even ate and liked it! Thanks for the great instructions!
Ruth, I am SO thrilled! You made me so happy 🙂 I love that you are giving your son a souffle..awesome! I am also thinking of doing a tutorial video of this recipe!
Maybe this point is obvious to everyone who reads this blog, but I found by experience that it is important not to use the eggs straight from the refrigerator: you want them at roughly room temperature for the whites to whip up to their full potential. This said, if you follow the instructions,you will get an impressive and delicious dish — served to friends just yesterday!
Good tip…thanks for your comment!
Thank you so much for posting pictures showing each step of the recipe. Your explanation makes a lot of sense. Also, thanks for the foil tip. I would have never thought of that.
Thanks so much Madonna!! I really hope it helps…Now I need to make another souffle lol
Thanks so much – my wife wanted a souffle as I was on vacation and she working ; I found the YouTube video of the Juile Child as a starting point – but your steps / pictures helped take a lot of the intimidation out of it. My first try didn’t quite look like yours – BUT ; it was a lot easier than I anticipated and I let it sit for an hour or so since the prep was done way before it needed to go in the oven. A great help with your pictures and knowing what to anticipate at each step. Now – she wants to know what I will do tomorrow night ; guess I need to poke around your site more. Regards – Steve
Hi Steve!! That makes me SOOOO happy!!! Souffle is a beautiful dish, temperamental but gorgeous!! If you’re still on a Julia kick, definitely check out her boeuf bourguignon (also on my blog)…its a labor of love, but the best stew you will ever have!! Happy New Year!
Hi. Are you still an active Blog? dates are old and it’s seems impossible to contact you. Was trying to let you know that Item 12 should read tap mold lightly, versus tap mild lightly. Is that correct? Anyway, thanks for the recipe, it worked great for me. I added some dijon (my taste). I’ve never made them before but they were a hit.
Hi Jack! Thank you for the feedback..yes still an active blog. I just moved to another state so have not been cooking as we were moving and just getting settled. The addition of Dijon sounds lovely!!!
Can you clarify how to serve it? Don’t scoop from the bottom, but spoon it vertically?? Vertically means up and down, but don’t go down to the bottom? I’m confused.
Hi MG and yes I’ll explain (as per Julia Child’s precise instructions in the book). Basically, the souffle is super light and airy so if you jammed the serving spoon in towards the bottom of the dish, the souffle will immediately collapse. Instead, she suggests to just gently scoop spoonfuls. Hope that makes sense 🙂
Hi there! I really want to make this, but I want to make two smaller souffles instead of one big one. Do you know what alterations I would have to make to the cooking instructions to do this?
Hi Madeline! Honestly I have not made the recipe smaller. But I have made the same recipe in smaller molds which works great but you have more than 2 of them. You could try cutting the recipe in half but I haven’t tried that so I can’t say how it will turn out. I would just make them in smaller molds and give the extra to a friend? Happy cooking!
Terrific. Love the foil idea. Question for you – thoughts about serving this cheese souffle as a side dish?? its a inherently rich dish so was thinking of smaller/side portions with a regular meal. If so what would be a good menu for the rest? Thanks!
Hi Mark! I think the cheese souffle would be lovely with a bright salad, maybe with arugula and olive oil and lemon juice, maybe some thinly sliced pear or green apple for crunch. I would want the souffle to shine so cant imagine it with a meat accompaniment but I think a gorgeous hearty salad would be lovely!