IMBB # 20 - Cloudberry Vanilla Souffl�

Again, the exciting food blog event "Is My Blog Burning?" has made me stretch my limits. And I love that. The host this month is Kitchen Chick, who has a lovely blog. The super cool theme - "Has My Blog Fallen?" I'm proud to say that no, it has not! I made my very first souffl� and it worked out perfectly! I'm so excited, can you tell?

My first thought was to go very basic, and make either a cheese or a chocolate souffl�. Then I thought a bit further, and realised I wanted to try something a bit more unique. I leafed through one of my basic cookbooks - Bonniers Kokbok, which was incidentally entirely re-written a few years ago, I heartily recommend it - and came across a basic recipe with many variations. And one variation was cloudberries. Perfect!

Cloudberries are hard to come by. They only grow way up north. In Sweden, there's a lot of "north" so there's a decent amount of cloudberries - but I've never seen any fresh for sale. You either buy them frozen, or in jam-form. You can read up on cloudberries here, and here. They are delicious, and if you get a chance to try some - go for it! They worked very well in the souffl�, and paired perfectly with the subtle vanilla, which I added just because I had so much of it. As you can see here, in a pic straight from the oven, they rose SO well. I'm really happy about that! This recipe made a bit more than I needed - I got four large-ish ramekins (As you can see in the picture, very cute heart-shaped ones from Le Creuset) and two smaller ones.

Cloudberry Vanilla Souffl�
6 small ramekins

40 g butter
40 g flour
200 ml milk
1 vanilla bean
4 egg yolks
40 ml cloudberry liquer, Lakka
200 g cloudberries, thawed
5 egg whites
3 tbsps sugar
1 tsp lemon juice

butter and sugar for the ramekins

Start by buttering and sugaring your ramekins, all the way to the top. Place in freezer. Score the vanilla bean and scrape out the seeds into the milk. Add bean, bring to a boil. Cover with a lid, remove from heat and let infuse for ten minutes. After that, discard bean.

Melt the butter in a small saucepan. Whisk in the flour, and let it cook for a minute. Add the milk, whisking vigourously for two minutes until it all comes together and easily slips from the saucepan. Let cool for a little while, then add the egg yolks, one at a time. Whisk, whisk, whisk. Transfer into a bowl. Add the Lakka, and the cloudberries. Mix well, and set aside.

Beat the egg whites with the sugar and lemon juice. I used my Kitchen-Aid but a fairly low setting as everyone warned me against beating them too much or too fast. I went slowly, until I had a thick, creamy mass that passed the "invert bowl over head"-trick. I figured that was enough. And it was, apparently. Beat in a third of the egg whites with the souffl� mix, and then carefully fold in the rest. Divide between the ramekins, and place in fridge for up to 3 hours.

When ready to eat, preheat oven to 200 degrees C. Bake souffl�s for 12-15 minutes. Take out, immediately dust with powdered sugar and serve. I added some cloudberry coulis on the side - just cloudberries cooked for a couple of minutes with a couple of tablespoons of sugar. Serve with more Lakka if you have it!



Tagged with: IMBB # 20 + Souffle