Previously on Pudding Club: Chocolate mousse / Pear and Ginger cake / Chocolate/Chestnut torte / Beef Wellington canapés / Crème renversée au caramel

So last night at pudding club, I opted for a new tactic – take ingredients and use our friends’ large well equipped kitchen to assemble a pudding on site.

A tactic with varied results. I was making soufflé, which you really need to know your oven for, and have a bit of a practice. My practice run earlier in the week had gone reasonably well:

This is based on Eric Lanlard’s recipe from the series Glamour Puds

Soufflé, like chocolate mousse, is one of those things that looks really impressive, but is made with very few ingredients and is quite easy to make, particularly with an electric whisk. Unlike chocolate mousse, you have to get the oven timings right, which needs a little practice. And preferably, the same oven when practising as on the night.

So, the night before, I peeled and cored 6 cox apples, sprinkled with cinnamon and a small amount of water, and roasted in a fairly hot oven for 45 minutes. Push the roasted apples through a sieve. (peeling them first makes it much easier to get them through the sieve, and adding a little water means you don’t leave half the apple as burnt bits on the roasting tin)

Come the evening itself, prepare 4 large ramekins: line with sponge fingers and sprinkle a little calvados over them. We have some fab calvados, bought directly from the farm in Normandy where it is distilled, so we always have a story to tell about the spirit.

Separate four eggs and mix the yolks in with the apple purée, and beat the whites to stiff peaks. Once the whites are ready, slowly add 200grams muscovado sugar whilst continuing to whisk. Then take a third of the egg white and mix well with the purée/yolk mix before folding the in the rest of the egg whites carefully to preserve the air. (This thing about adding in a third and mixing well, and carefully folding in the remaining amount is a new thing to me – but I have now seen it on several different cooking programmes in the same week.)

Pour the mix over the sponge biscuits and bake in a hot oven, 210 deg C for 9-12 minutes. It’s a soufflé, so don’t open the oven door until they are cooked. Hope you have an oven with a window! When they are cooked, the soufflé will rise quite considerably in height, and a skewer should come out clean.

My effort last night wasn’t quite cooked enough, but still a little tasty.

I think it could probably have stayed in another five minutes without burning too much on top.

Another similar Eric Lanlard recipe is “Soufflé Pompadour” – which uses oranges instead of apples, and is cooked in the hollowed out orange shells, which are place in teacups to serve.

Advantages of using friends’ kitchen and equipment?

• less washing up
• getting to use their non-stick ramekins (which look fancy but were £1 each from Wilco)
• getting to use theirKitchenAid Classic Stand Mixer (White)

Recipes which might make an outing for a future Pudding club:

Eric Lanlard / Glamour puds:

• Galette des rois (looks relatively simple, but relies on good presentation, which always lets me down)
• Tarte borguinione – which looks pretty similar to this old favourite, but with the welcome addition  of chocolate and red wine…

Raymond Blanc recipes

• Délice au chocolat – fiddly, much?  But a biscuit base made from praline and bran flakes?!

PS, is it just me, or Raymond Blanc – Chris Noth – separated at birth?