Apricot Soufflé Recipe from Justin North's French Lessons

Sep 10, 2011
Larry Ervin

Individual Apricot Souffles - Steve Brown, by permission of the publisher, Hardie Grant Books

Justin North's French Lessons building blocks will work well for the home cook wanting to build skills, less so if you're looking for a quick recipe.

The recipe for Apricot Soufflé below is a good illustration of the building blocks organization of this cookbook. In the book, the soufflé recipe refers you back to the Fruit Soufflé Base recipe, which, in turn is built on the basic Fruit Purée recipe. Moreover, the two sub-recipes refer you to yet other recipes for the preparation method.

The beautifully illustrated trade paperback version of the book comes with generous front and back cover flaps, ideal for marking your place. Unfortunately, the flaps alone won’t be enough to mark all the places this recipe sends you.

The author, Justin North, and the publisher are Australian. As a consequence, the ingredient measurements are specified in metric. While the book includes a page of conversion tables, American cooks may be frustrated if they don’t have a set of kitchen scales. For this review, I have given both sets of measurements in the recipe below and incorporated the sub-recipes.

Apricot Purée Recipe

Fruit purées are useful as a base for custards and mousses as well as fruit soufflés like the one below. Make your soufflé base with apricots – or indeed any other fruit, such as peaches, raspberries or rhubarb.

Yield: 500 ml (2 cups)

Ingredients

500 g. (18 ounces) apricots
120 ml (1/2 cup) water

Fruit Purée Method

Cut the apricots in half and remove the kernels (pits). Place in a saucepan with the water and simmer over a high heat for 10-15 minutes until the fruit is soft and dryish. Remove from the heat and whiz to a purée in a liquidizer (blender of food processor). Push through a fine sieve to remove any skins or fibrous matter.

Fruit Soufflé Base

Yield: 500 g

Ingredients

360 g (12.5 ounces) Apricot Purée
3 egg yolks
30 g (1 ounce) caster sugar
20 g (3/4 ounce) plain flour, sifted
20 g (3/4 ounce) corn flour

Soufflé Base Method

In a heavy-based saucepan, bring the Apricot Purée just to a boil and remove it from the heat and set aside.
Put the egg yolks and sugar in an electric mixer and whisk gently to the ribbon stage (when the mixture can be pulled up in ribbons, but will not hold the shape). Fold in the sifted flour and corn flour.
Pour a third of the hot purée into the egg mixture and whisk gently to combine. Pour back into the saucepan with the rest of apricot purée and cook gently over a moderate heat for about 5 minutes, whisking all the time. The mixture will thicken to a stiff, glossy smooth paste.
Remove from the heat and stand the pan in a sink of iced water. Whisk vigorously to beat out any lumps. When completely cold, store in a sealed container in a refrigerator for up to 5 days.

Apricot Soufflé Recipe

Ingredients

250 g Apricot Soufflé base, (half of the above recipe)
40 g Apricot liqueur
7 egg whites
140 g caster sugar

Apricot Soufflé Method

Preheat the oven to 190?C. (375? F.).
Lightly grease 4 individual soufflé dishes or individual oven-proof omelette pans (as shown).
Put the egg whites and sugar in a scrupulously clean electric mixer and whisk to soft peaks (when the peaks won’t hold their shape).
Fold into the Apricot Soufflé base and spoon the mixture into the containers. Bake until risen and golden, 5 to 8 minutes. Serve immediately.

(Recipe Adapted from from French Lessons: Recipes and Techniques for a New Generation of Cooks by Justin North (by permission from Hardie Grant Books, dist. by Trafalgar Square Publishing/IPG)

Avid Locavore

North writes in his Introduction:

“While I understand that not many people have the time or opportunity to shop daily, I do really encourage you to spend more time shopping at markets and greengrocers, to support your local butchers and fishmongers, to spend the extra dollar on organic and free range, rather than mass-produced foodstuffs. Not only will your dinner taste better, but you will also be doing your part to keep alive the dream of the small, local and passionate producers who so greatly need your support.”

Book Details

French Lessons, Recipes and techniques for a new generation of cooks, by Justin North, Hardie Grant Books, 380 pages, 300 recipes , generous color illustrations by Steve Brown, well indexed by Lucy Malouf, list price (US) $30.

Author Details

Justin North owns and operates Bécasse, named in 2007 Best Restaurant in the Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide. He is the author of Bécasse: Inspirations and Flavours.