As mentioned in Day 6 of The Challenge
This started as part of a soufflé craze the we and some friends went through in South Africa. I can't remember how it started, but for the year that we lived there we made all sorts of soufflés, sweet and savoury, most of which were without recipes, just trials of our own devising. This particular one appeared after Thanksgiving. We had cooked down a whole giant pumpkin to make pie and had extra pumpkin pie filling, so we used it to make soufflé. I really enjoyed revisiting it, on request of a sister.
Soufflés unfortunately have a reputation for being delicate and difficult, but I've found that essentially a medium-thick roux with the right number of egg yolks and stiff egg whites mixed in usually comes out perfectly (unfortunately this one deflated before I managed to take a picture, but it had risen beautifully and was light and fluffy).
Ingredients:
3/4 c pumpkin purée
1/2 c brown sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp of ground ginger
1/4 tsp of ground cloves
1 tbsp melted butter
1 tbsp milk (or condensed milk, but this will make it sweeter. Do feel free to adjust this and the sugar to suit your tastes.)
2 tbsp of orange zest
2 egg yolks
6 egg whites
Butter and cinnamon sugar to coat soufflé dish
1) Preheat oven to 200°C. Mix pumpkin purée, brown sugar, spices, butter, milk, egg yolks and orange zest. Beat whites to stiff peaks.
2) Add 1/3 of egg whites to pumpkin mixture and gently mix it in, then fold in remaining whites.
3) Butter a medium-sized soufflé dish and sprinkle it with cinnamon sugar OR prepare 6 individual ramequin dishes. This allows the soufflé to rise without sticking to the sides of the dish.
4) Bake for 25-30 minutes for a medium-sized dish OR 8-10 minutes for individual ones WITHOUT opening the oven door until the end. It should be firm but soft and airy. Serve plain, with cream, ice cream or meringues.
I love this soufflé! The original pumpkin pie recipe that we used is my husband's grandmother's, but the soufflé is entirely ours. Just as good this time as previously, and definitely worth having a light dinner and this afterwards. Do eat it fresh out of the oven as it collapses quickly and just isn't the same. A similar concept does work for cake mixes too, like black velvet or carrot cake, or other soufflé bases like baked apple. Let me know if there's another one you would like me to post on here :)