Mango and vanilla souffle

I don’t often prepare desserts but when I do they’re usually French or Italian!  So I’ve stuck with this theme this evening and prepared mango and vanilla soufflés.  The cooking time and accuracy of ingredient volumes are completely key when preparing soufflés so follow my guide below and you should end up with something like this…

Mix it up a little and substitute the mango with raspberries or any other fruit!  Souffles are also magnificent as a savoury dish, especially cheese flavoured!

Ingredients

Meringue:

20g softened butter, to grease dishes
20g caster sugar, to coat dishes
4 medium egg whites
40g caster sugar
1 ripe mango, about 250g, peeled, stoned and finely diced

Pastry cream:
350ml milk
70g caster sugar
1 vanilla pod, split lengthways
7 medium egg yolks
50g plain flour

For the passion fruit coulis:
30g caster or icing sugar
juice of two oranges (alternatively use good quality bottled fresh orange juice)
2 passion fruit, halved

Method

For the coulis:

1. Slowly bring the orange juice and caster sugar to the boil.  Reduce by around a third. cool and add the seeds of the passion fruit.  Set aside and serve cold or re-heat when the soufflés are ready.

For the soufflés:

Preheat the oven to 200c/Gas mark 6

1.Butter 2 individual soufflé dishes (ramekins) and coat the insides with the sugar.

2. For the pastry cream, put the milk and 20g sugar in a small pan, scrape in the seeds from the vanilla pods and bring to the boil.   Take off the heat and cool just very slightly.

3. Whisk the egg yolks and remaining sugar in a bowl, then incorporate the flour and whisk.  Pour the hot milk on to the yolks, whisking continuously.  Return to the pan and whisk over a low heat for 2 minutes until the mixture has become a thick custard. Pour into a bowl and allow to cool slightly.

4.For the meringue, beat the egg whites to a thick foam then add the 40g sugar and continue to beat until they become a meringue consistency.  Fold a third of the meringue mix into the pastry cream using a whisk then fold in the rest of the meringue to the mixture, scattering in the mango as you go.

5. Divide the mixture between the soufflé dishes bringing them level with the rim.  Place the ramekins on some baking paper on an oven tray and cook for around 10 minutes or until the soufflés have risen around 2cm above the ramekin.

6. Serve the soufflés immediately

Cut a small cross in the top of the coulis and pour in the orange and passion fruit coulis!