Chocolate Souffle With Whipped Cream & Hot Chocolate Sauce

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Molly O'Neill is our Food Editor. She is the former food columnist for The New York Times Magazine. O'Neill is the author of three cookbooks, including the best-selling New York Cookbook (Workman Publishing, 1992), A Well Seasoned Appetite (Penguin, 1997), and The Pleasure of Your Company (Viking, 1997). She was the host of the PBS series Great Food, and edited the critically acclaimed anthology American Food Writing (Library of America, 2007). Her latest work, Mostly True: A Memoir of Family, Food, and Baseball (Scribner, 2006), recounts her childhood of growing up in a Major-League baseball family.

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by Molly O'Neill

Suzanne Somers has been baking in the kitchen with her grandchildren since they were very young. Now there are six of them and they’ve moved beyond basic cookies and into more challenging desserts. “They are like an entire staff of pastry chefs!” says Somers, who taught the crew to bake chocolate soufflés over a long holiday weekend.

“They loved melting the chocolate, separating the eggs, and whipping the egg whites. They learned how to fold the egg whites into the chocolate to keep them from deflating,” she says. “The results were fabulous!

“I use my signature sweetener, SomerSweet, in place of sugar, but I have also provided measurements for sugar,” Somers says.

Soufflé:
4 ounces dark chocolate (at least 60 percent cocoa)
3 egg yolks
1 tablespoon SomerSweet (or 5 tablespoons sugar)
5 egg whites

Hot Chocolate Sauce:
6 ounces dark chocolate, chopped
3/4 cup heavy cream

Whipped Cream:
1 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon SomerSweet (or 1 teaspoon sugar)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Butter a 1-quart soufflé dish.

For the soufflé:

1. Melt the chocolate in the top of a double boiler. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks until they are pale yellow (about 4 minutes using an electric mixer or 8 minutes by hand).

2. Add SomerSweet (or sugar). Continue to beat until well blended. Remove the chocolate from the heat and set aside to cool slightly.

3. Slowly add the egg mixture to the chocolate mixture, stirring constantly. You do not want the eggs to cook.

4. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until they are stiff. Pour the chocolate mixture into the egg whites and fold gently with a spatula, using wide circular motions so that you keep as much air in the mixture as possible. Gently pour the mixture into the buttered soufflé dish and bake for 15 minutes.

For the chocolate sauce:

Place the chopped chocolate into a bowl. Place the cream in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Add the hot cream to the chocolate and stir until all the lumps are gone.

For the whipped cream:

Combine the cream, vanilla, SomerSweet (or sugar) in a bowl and whip with an electric mixer, or by hand with a whisk, until soft peaks form.

When the soufflé is puffed and done, serve immediately with a spoonful of hot chocolate sauce and a dollop of whipped cream.