Warm airy mini soufflés, with a sweet and perfumed ricotta – pasty cream and a tart cranberry coulis. Heavenly!
ingredients for 6-8 individual ramekins (total cost about 5 € for the whole preparation with organic ingredients)
for the cranberry coulis
- 120 g cranberries
- 120 g di acqua
- 75 g di zucchero
- rind from ½ organic lemon
- 1 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
- un pizzico di sale
per la soufflés
- 200 g ricotta (weighed after straining)
- 125 ml milk
- rind from 1/2 organic lemon
- 1/4 cinnamon stick
- 1/2 star anise
- 10 g maizena (starch)
- 1 tuorlo d'uovo
- 4 egg whites
- 1 g cream of tartar
- 12,5 g + 27,5 g granulated sugar
- a little butter softened + a little extra sugar to coat the ramekins
In the fresh market I found gorgeous rubby coloured tart cranberries and I could not resist. In my fridge I already had some egg whites (left overs from another preparation), as well as a ricotta confection. So I thought it would be a wonderful idea to prepare some mini ricotta soufflés. The lovely vibrant red colour of the cranberries gives life to the paleness of the soufflé and their tartness balances the sweetness of whole preparation.
Individual souffles are such a convinient dessert. We make the batter, keep it in the fridge and just before dessert time, we pop them in the oven for about a quarter, and voila! You have an a la minute served delicious dessert, drizzled with a coulis made of season fruits.
A couple hours before we place the ricotta in a colander and keep it in the fridge, until all of its liquids strain.
So, we begin by preparing our cranberry coulis. I pitted my cranberries, I weighed them and then I made a syrup using equal weight of water and more than 60% sugar, as these particular cranberries were too too tart (they were not very ripe). If yours are not extremely tart, you can use less sugar (about 50%). You can always control and adjust the sweetness in the end, adding some icing sugar, if necessary.
In a saucepan we pour the water, sugar and a pinch of salt and bring to a boil. As soon as the syrup starts boiling, we place in the cranberries as well as the lemon rind and a few drops of lemon juice (about 1tsp). We add the lemon drops to brighten the flavor of the coulis, add a touch of freshness and, mostly, to keep its red colour vibrant. If you also have oranges, you can add some orange rind as well, or even substitute a part of water with orange juice. It pairs wonderfully with the cranberries.
We let it reach the boiling point again, and then we lower the heat and simmer for about 15-20 minutes (stirring every now and then) or until we see bubbles blistering and the cranberries pop out and start to melt. We then turn them to puree with the immersion blender and control our sweetness. If needed, we add some more sugar. We also check the thickness of our coulis. If too thick, we dilute it with some hot water, if too liquid we reduce it a little returning it to the heat. It has to be thick, yet still runny. When ready, we let it cool.
Then we prepare a small portion of pastry cream, using 125 ml milk, 1/2 lemon rind, 1/4 cinammon stick, 1/2 star anise, 1 egg yolk, 12,5 g sugar and a pinch of salt. (see QUI how to prepare it)
When the pastry cream is cold enough, we adjust the rack on the lower – middle position and preheat the oven to 200 o C (static oven). We grease the ramekins well with a little butter and sprinkle with granulated sugar. We roll the sugar around in the the ramekins and shake to evenly coat the bottom and sides. We tap out excess sugar and set aside.
Then we whisk the pastry cream well with the ricotta cheese and a little lemon zest, until smooth and finally we make a meringue with the egg whites and the remaining 27,5 g of the sugar.
Using a hand mixer we beat the egg whites for about a minute at low speed until frothy, then we add a little add the cream of tartar to help egg whites stabilize (DON’T use salt, or Dario Bressanini will haunt your dreams or ever) and continue until soft peaks form when we lift the whisk. We raise the speed and continue by slowly adding the sugar in a steady stream, until tighter peaks are formed.
We add a couple of spoons of the meringue to the ricotta – pastry cream mixture, stirring to dilute it a little, then we gently fold in the remaining meringue in 2-3 batches, being careful not to deflate it.
We place the ramekins for a couple of minutes in the preheated oven to warm them up, then we remove and fill them to 2/3 max ¾ up with the soufflé mixture.
We return the filled ramekins to the oven, we immediately lower the temperature to 180 o C and bake for about 14-15 min or until the mini soufflés have well risen and the top has a light golden colour. Keep in mind that time varies according to the oven, the size of the ramekins, the portion of the soufflé etc. Therefore, you should better check it. Also keep in mind that we should not open the oven door during baking, because the soufflés will deflate.
We immediately unmold to serving dishes, pour over a little cranberry coulis, freshly grind on top extra lemon zest and serve them warm.
