Banana Soufflé

Banana Souffles: Photo taken by Dad.

Most of my friends already know this, but when it comes to food that isn't dessert, I can be a health freak. Macdonald's is enemy no.1. (Unless it's 3am and I'm starving after a night out. Then maybe I'll buy the apple pie.) When I cook for myself in London, salmon, salad and soup are ideal. Striking a balance between taste and health is simple when it comes to savoury food - a little avocado, a few freshly toasted walnuts or a sprinkling of wild rocket leaves go a long way. The hard part is making a dessert that isn't bloated with the same number of calories as your main course. 


Soufflés fall neatly into this category. The French are ingenious for coming up with the soufflé. They're completely flourless because they're made mainly of egg white and then puffed up with air so they're relatively guilt-free. And they taste like a more intense version of mousse. (Side note: on one of my enthusiastic but failed attempts to learn french through a combination of weekly lessons and french movies, I discovered that soufflé literally means "puff up" in french. I don't know why but I found that amusing.) 


Soufflés are one of my go to favourites because they look like they took an incredible amount of effort but are really deceptively easy to make. I stumbled across this Banana Soufflé recipe when I was desperately trying to find a way to salvage some of the 20 plus bananas lying around the house. Don't ask me why we had 20 bananas, but the point is that they had to be put to good use before they wasted away with age. I no longer remember where I got this recipe from, but it worked wonderfully on my first try:

Banana Soufflé Recipe 
Serves 6

INGREDIENTS

22.5 grams unsalted butter, melted

7.5 tablespoons sugar

3 firm, ripe bananas, mashed (2 cups)

1.5 tablespoon fresh lime/lemon juice

2 medium egg yolk

5 medium egg whites

pinch of cinnamon

pinch of salt

optional: grated chocolate instead of sugar to coat ramekins

.                 Preheat the oven to 204°C. Brush six 1-cup ramekins with melted butter. Add 3 tablespoons of the sugar to 1 of the ramekins and rotate it to coat with sugar. Tap the excess sugar into another ramekin and repeat until all the ramekins are coated with sugar.

.                 In a food processor, pureé the bananas with the lemon juice, egg yolk, 3 tablespoons of sugar and cinnamon until smooth. Scrape the banana mixture into a large bowl. 

.                 In a medium stainless steel bowl, beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt (and the rest of the lemon juice) until soft peaks form. Add the remaining 1 tablespoon of sugar and beat until firm and glossy. Using a rubber spatula, beat one-fourth of the beaten whites into the banana mixture, then gently fold in the remaining whites. Spoon the soufflé mixture into the prepared ramekins and tap them lightly on a countertop.

.                 Transfer the soufflés to a baking sheet and bake in the center of the oven for about 15 minutes, or until golden brown and risen. Serve at once. 


The difficult part is beating the egg whites and stopping at the right moment when stiff peaks form. I found this to be of invariable help when I first started with making chocolate soufflés.