This idea has been floating round my brain for a while now and this week I finally tested it out and this was the outcome….beautiful airy cheese soufflés, rich from the eggs and with the flavour of cheese, but with the added tang of sourdough. SOOOOOO a good! Tasty, light, textured, perfect morsels. For me, a total winner!
As this was pure experiment – let me clarify, I have never ever made any form of soufflé, sourdough or otherwise before this – I only made a small amount of batter so feel free to increase it. This made 4 small soufflés, in 8cm (internal) diameter pots.
The idea came from thinking about the light bubbly airy nature of sourdough starter mixed with the light airy nature of a soufflé. In my mind it made perfect sense! And luckily the result was fabulous, even if I say so myself! I immediately ate 3 just to be totally sure 😆😆😆😆
Small but perfectly formed and so very tasty!!!!!
It was so exciting to watch them cook as they grew very quickly, and very well! I was dancing round my kitchen in excitement.
I am so happy with the outcome, I hope you love them too if you try them. I know they could have risen more evenly, I know they’re not ‘perfect’ in the world of soufflés, but I don’t care! It worked and they taste so good, to me they’re perfectly beautiful sourdough cheese soufflé babies!
Here’s what I did…
Ingredients
100g bubbly active starter
100g whole/full fat milk
100g grated medium/mature cheddar (depending just how much you love cheese!)
2 eggs, separated into yolks and whites
Butter to grease the pots
Ground almonds, 4 tablespoons (use finely grated Parmesan or breadcrumbs for a different finish)
Method
Preheat the oven to 180C/360F fan assisted/convection or 200C/390F non fan/non convection, and place an oven tray inside to preheat.
Grease your ramekins, or small ceramic pots, with butter, then sprinkle ground almonds/almond flour into each pot and tap it around to create a layer inside each pot, covering the base and up the sides.
In a medium bowl, make the batter by adding the starter, milk, egg yolks and cheese. Stir it all together well.
In another clean bowl, whisk the eggs whites until they just hold their peaks.
Gently scrape the whisked egg whites into the batter.
Using a metal spoon, gently fold the eggs whites into the batter, using a figure 8 action, or cutting and stirring round the bowl. Do this carefully to mix them in whilst protecting the air that you’ve whisked into the whites. Do not over mix. This is crucial.
Gently spoon the batter into the prepared bowls filling them evenly and to the top of the pots if possible.
‘Top hat’ each one by running a cutlery knife, or clean finger nail, around the edge of each pot, just the very tip of the knife, so that the mixture doesn’t stick. (I didn’t do this very well hence the uneven growths!)
Place the pots onto the preheated tray in the oven.
After 15 minutes turn the oven down to 160C/320F fan assisted/convection or 180C/360F non fan/non convection, and bake for another 15 minutes.
DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN UNTIL FULLY BAKED. If you do they will collapse.
Serve immediately.
They may start to collapse quickly but it’s all part of the fun!
Voila! My new creation! Welcome to the world sourdough cheese soufflés!
I am sharing my soufflés with everyone at the weekly Fiesta Friday link party this week – join in the fun!
Good job. Very amainzing👌👌👌👌👌
I do love cheese so I need to get me some ramekins and try this out. Thanks Elaine for all your hard work in creating this. I can’t wait to try it.
They look amazing! I now have visions of you dancing in the kitchen with a big smile on your face! I can’t wait to try them! I’m betting my Einkorn starter will work just fine here!!! How full to you fill the ramekins? You say ‘evenly’. Do you mean even with the top of the ramekin? Curious…
Thank you ☺️☺️☺️
Thank you so much 🌸🌸🌸
Thank you 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻 I meant fill them all the same amount of mixture so that they’re all the same size but also, yes, fill them to the top of the pots 👍🏻
Thank you for sharing this recipe Elaine!! Am so going to try making them.
You can make Lemon Delicious pudding using the same principle. I tried it because unfermented wheat flour triggers my IBS. I used starter which had fully exhausted (risen and gone flat again so that I knew the flour was fully fermented). I used enough starter to match the amount of flour the standard recipe used, then added milk so the water in the starter plus the milk matched the milk required in the recipe, and added skim milk powder in the proportion required to make the water in the starter into milk. Otherwise I followed my usual recipe. It was excellent!
Thank you, I hope you like them xx
Great! Thank you 👍🏻
Looks so light and golden!! Lovely!!!
Thank you 😍😍😍😍
Thank you x x x
I tried this and mine never rose
at all : (
Soufflés can be tricky…but the mix stills tastes good!
Having never made a soufflé in my life , was so happy to open the oven door and see 4 beautifully risen soufflés , thanks a million for this recipe absolutely delicious 🙂
Brilliant! Thank you 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Your beauties appear to be a sister to my “Yankee” Popovers. Yummy and so beautiful too! One quick question..Being an “Empty-Nester” I prefer to create your Baby loaves. Is there a conversion for the amounts used in the Master & Enriched recipes? Love your wonderful book!
Hi, thank you so much ☺️☺️
You can take any of my standard recipes and use 60g of all of the standard quantities to convert them to baby versions xx
This was a show stopper and a crowd pleaser! I even posted a video of taking them out of the oven on Facebook and it wow’d all my friends. Thanks for sharing a great recipe.
Oh wow! Thank you so much 🤩🤩
Wow! These look amazing. Thank you so much for sharing on FF.
Thank you xx I hope all is good with you x
What. How?? Elaine, you never cease to amaze me! You’re a genius!
Brilliant Elaine – I knew this post had to be one of your creative recipes ;:)
Thank you 😃😃😃☺️☺️ Xxx
Thank you so much xx
Just tried this in the air fryer. Excellent! Thanks for sharing. It was not a big rise but very good. It was a bit wet at the bottom. I’ll increase the initial temperature and improve the preparation of pot for better sliding. I had only one big pot fitting all composition – maybe that’s the reason.
Oh wow, thank you!!!