Only duck eggs left

Cartoonist invited her friend over to cook, and they decided to try the souffle again, but this time, having used up the last orange in the house, they set out to make an Almond Souffle instead, as we have a plethora of almonds. I keep them around to munch on.

But, I had no chicken eggs left. I had used them all up when my sweetie and my mother we staying with us, and all I had left were duck eggs. I get the duck eggs from Camp Joy, my CSA. They are quite a bit larger then hen eggs, so I told Cartoonist to use one less than the recipe called for.

Bouilie sauce with almond meal

The thing about the almond version is that it called for pulverized toasted almonds.  According to the Julia Child cookbook, one should pulverize them in a blender or processor, and to add sugar as you pulverize them. Well, knowing the luck I have had with the blender, and not having any toasted almonds, I just grabbed some almond meal and handed that to Cartoonist and told her to use that. Not as sweet as the version in the cookbook, but very almond tasting. The mix was sweet enough as it was.  It did make the mix very brown though.

Finished Almond Souffle

Cartoonist and her friend folded in the egg whites, and put the souffle in the oven. When they took it out, it had hardly risen, and it was at that point that they realized they had not added the butter, which should have gone in the sauce. It still tasted good, though it wasn’t light and airy, and everyone who tasted it agreed that it tasted good, but more like an almond cake then a souffle.

So, now we had two souffles in as many days, and we couldn’t possibly eat them all, and it seemed a shame to throw it out.

Baggie of souffle

Fortunately, Cartoonist was working this week at the Art Center, and the teacher had heard about her cooking and asked to have some, so Cartoonist took it to work with her in a baggie. Not the best presentation, but it tasted good, and was enjoyed by all.

Mixing the bouilie sauce base

After the disaster that was the cheese souffle, Cartoonist wanted to make a different flavor, so I told her to try making a sweet souffle. She thought that sounded like a good idea, so jumped into it. Once again we turned to the Julia Child Cookbook, and she picked out the Souffle a l”Orange. We still had some left over half and half, so she didn’t have to use yogurt to make the bouille sauce It thickened up well, but we didn’t want to do what the cookbook suggested which was mash the sugar lumps against an orange. Instead Cartoonist used the zest of the orange and put it into the sauce.

Mixing the egg whites

Having made marange, she was now an old hand at mixing the egg whites, and they got nice and fluffy. Instead of just vanilla extract, she also put in almond extract, and we didn’t have an orange liqueur, but we found a liqueur, and figured that was better than nothing.

Cartoonist followed the rest of directions and put it in the mold and then into the oven.

Finished sweet souffle

It rose just fine, but of course, as soon as as we punctured it, it fell. Tasted good, though it was sweet, and we put the left overs in a baggie, not sure what to do with them, until later.