George Blogg - A Soufflé Celebration
Raspberry soufflé with buttermilk ice cream and raspberry and mint coulis
It would have been wonderful to celebrate our 44th Wedding Anniversary luxuriating in the hospitality on offer at one of the restaurants which, within current rules, are open again. But times are strange under Covid-19 so we decided to stay at home, keep safe - and protect our wallets (who needs Dominic Cummings to write short, pithy slogans, eh!).
Gravetye Manor and its team would have fitted the bill very well. They will again in future but our cooked at home celebratory meal would have to rely on a finale courtesy of a recipe from their Executive Chef, George Blogg.
Buttermilk ice cream gives a dairy sourness which differs from the sharpness of the raspberries. It is still needed to counteract a fair amount of sugar. Which means that you hop around between indulgent and ‘grown-up’ flavours but never lose balance.
No Pacojet at Cheoff Towers yet - but you can still see something smooth and sensuous churning into shape in the bucket of our ice cream maker.
The coulis is a bit special. Each element of a dish is so important. We often remember our young teenage son finishing his meal at a countryside restaurant on the last night of one of our early holidays in France. He declared the red, fruity pouring on his dessert the best thing he’d ever tasted. I will often use a splash of lemon juice to brighten things and kick taste buds into recognising more flavour. Here George Blogg uses the addition of mint and it works so well.
I made a small detour from the recipe by adding whole, bruised mint leaves as the raspberries and sugar were heated. This imparts the herb’s flavour and leaves you to decide whether you have the knife skills to chop brunoise tiny and refined enough for a further addition.
Our Bowles’s mint tub is flourishing at this time of year and seems to replace any clippings with new growth before the next day is over.
I’ve already referenced pain d'épices here. George Blogg might be pleased to know that the crumbs which line my buttered dishes are courtesy of the loaf which I usually make - from the recipe of his mentor, friend and fellow inspiration, David Everitt-Matthias. It remains a great store-cupboard standby.
You should be able to identify candied fruits and maybe even spices in the slices below.
These crumbs were toasted again before zizzing to a rough ‘powder’.
Ice cream, coulis and spiced bread? All made before with increasing confidence. But here’s the scary bit - I’ve never tried to cook a soufflé before (lovely as they are, I refuse to count those cheaty, twice-baked efforts which you freeze before triumphantly reviving them for guests).
Buttered and crumbed soufflé dishes confirm that you have taken a step into the unknown. Might as well see this thing through.
The raspberry base begins its folded journey into whipped egg white. The red and white resolve to form a baby pink and give this dessert a deceptive ‘nursery food’ look which is completely undermined in the eating.
For an interesting aside go to Kassia St Clair’s ‘The Secret Lives of Colour’. Among other things you’ll find that ‘Pink is for girls and blue is for boys’ is a rather modern stereotype which is a complete reverse of the attitude prevalent less than a hundred years ago.
Cooking timings for halfway turning and the moment-of-truth decision to serve were probably a bit more relaxed as I had only one (very special) guest to cater for. There was rise without fall but another minute might have seen a marginally higher top.
No matter. Once they are out and dusted with icing sugar there is no going back.
The top is firm enough to support the ice cream but I would recommend slitting it with a spoon to allow the ice cream to nestle in it. Otherwise you might find it sliding off like it did just after this picture was taken.
The pink, featherdown soft result looked pretty good for a first attempt - yes, I do say so myself! The soufflés had risen to the challenge but the larger size of our new dishes presented us with another as we began to taste. There is a lot of sugary sweetness and eggy richness here but the raspberry base asserts itself all the time to balance things on your palate. The ice cream also has indulgence and sourness. We enjoyed our valiant struggle to the end including little hits of the spiced bread as our we scraped up the last spoonful. This is a pretty thing which is every bit as sharp as a French tarte au citron.
Great thanks are due to George Blogg for his recipe and the inspiration to cook something a bit special. It was a small triumph - just right to celebrate that other small triumph of Mr and Mrs Cheoff’s marriage!
Footnote 1:
In case you get there before us - this alternative utter delight is now on the August 2020 menu at Gravetye.
Footnote 2:
The Great British Chefs website has recently had an overhaul after ‘coming under new management’. A bit of discontent has followed but I am perfectly happy to consider my options for subscribing to their new levels of membership. Anyone can dip in each day for at least three features, articles or recipes. Enough access to grab, read, understand and make the recipe here.
Don’t just look… COOK!