Rasita My Family, My Animals, My Food

This is a decadent dessert best eaten in moderation, even half a coffee cup is almost too much.

This can be whipped up quickly, if you leave out the citrus fruit, but it still needs some planning as you want good quality ingredients to get best taste from this dish.

Firstly you need to candy the citrus fruit. I used lime but it is a little sour and may not appeal to all tastes. The program, Master Chef,  where I got the idea for this dish from, use oranges. I am not sure which type of oranges they used but the sweeter variety would work well here.

It easily serves 6.

Candied Citrus Fruit

Ingredients

• citrus fruit of your choice (1 orange, or 2 limes)
• enough sugar to cover the fruit
• splash of water

Method

1. Roughly chop up the fruit, place in a sauce pan and cover with sugar.
2. Add a little water and place on the stove top.
3. Heat till boiling then turn off the heat.
4. Allow it to cool, then bring it back up to the boil. I cooked mine a little longer so as to soften up the rind, but my rind was still too hard to be any good.
5. After the second lot of boiling, allow it to cool completely, and strain off the liquid. The liquid can be reserved and used as a syrup.
6. Chop up the fruit and set aside

Choc Citrus Soufflé

Ingredients

• 1 200 gram block of good quality dark chocolate
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup caster sugar
• spray oil (soft butter can substitute this)
• extra sugar
• coffee cups or small soufflé dishes

Method

1. Make sure the shelves in the oven where you want them to be. Ideally the soufflé should be cooked in the centre of the oven. Turn the oven on to 200 degrees Celsius.
2. Break up the chocolate into pieces and place in a bowl.
3. Set a pot of water onto the stove top and turn to a medium/high temperature. Place the bowl with chocolate in it, on the top of the pot.
4. Bring the pot of water up to the boil then turn off the heat. Set the pot (with the bowl of chocolate still on it) aside to finish melting.
5. Using the spray oil, spray the insides of the coffee cups. Pour in a little sugar and then roll the cup so that inside is coated with the sugar.
6. Separate the yolks from the whites of the eggs. Stir the melting chocolate to see how it is going.
7. In a bowl, beat the egg whites with about 1/2 of the recommended sugar. Beat the egg whites until they produce soft peaks. Add in the remaining sugar and beat until glossy.
8. The chocolate should be melted by this stage. Take the bowl off the pot and stir to make sure it is smooth. Add in the egg yolks, stirring well to incorporate the yolks into the chocolate. The mix will go thick but do not worry, this is normal.
9. Take about 1/3 of the egg white mix and add to the chocolate. Stir it in well to make a looser/softer batter.
10. Add the remaining amount of egg white, carefully folding so as to not loose the incorporated air.
11. Place the coffee mugs on a tray with sides. Pour approximately 1 cup of water into the base of the tray.
12. Once the mixture is carefully, and completely, combined, you can spoon it into the waiting coffee mugs. You need to be careful so as to not drip the mixture onto the sides of the mugs. If you do, this could cause the soufflé to catch as it rises in the oven.
13. About halfway through the filling process, add in a little bit of your candied citrus fruit, then top up with soufflé mix until they are full.
14. Once filled, place the tray of cups into the oven and bake for approximately 10 minutes.
15. When cooked, remove them from the oven and allow to cool slightly before serving.

This dish can be served with whipped cream, dusted with icing sugar, topped with the remaining candied fruit (or syrup) or a good dollop of ice cream.