Ben Bayly’s Rhubarb soufflé
+ pain de d'épices ice cream
Serves: 4
I feel like everyone has rhubarb in their backyard and does nothing with it. This recipe will take that plant that you wonder why it’s in your garden to a decadent and impressive dessert.
Tip: be super ready for serving this dish, once your soufflé is in the oven there is no going back!
Ingredients & Methods
Soufflé Base
- 1kg diced rhubarb
- 1.3L homemade rhubarb juice (you’ll need to juice about 2.5kg rhubarb)
- 250g frozen raspberries
- 500ml strong hibiscus tea
- 450g sugar
- 150g cornflour
Pain d’épices
- 120ml milk
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon, plus extra for sprinkling
- 1 tsp ground nutmeg, plus extra for sprinkling
- 4 star anise
- 1 tsp vanilla paste
- 50g crystallised ginger
- 8g lemon zest
- 8g orange zest
- 5 eggs, whisked
- 400g honey, warmed
- 280g rye flour
- 120g plain flour
- 28g baking powder
- 100g butter, for frying
- 80g sugar
- ground mixed spice, to season
Pain d’épices ice cream
- 500g egg yolks
- 600g sugar
- 100g dextrose
- 100g honey
- 20g egg-based ice-cream stabiliser
- 2L milk
- 1L cream
- cinnamon sticks crushed
- 2 star anise
- 10g vanilla paste
- 1 lemon (zested)
- 1 orange (zested)
- 5g salt
To cook and serve
- softened butter (for greasing)
- caster sugar (for dusting)
- 150g egg whites
- 50g sugar
Soufflé Base
- Place all of the ingredients except the cornflour in a large saucepan over medium heat and cook for around an hour until the rhubarb has completely broken down and the mixture has thickened.
- Add cornflour and cook for a further 10 minutes to ensure cornflour is completely cooked out, then remove from heat and, using a stick blender, blend until smooth.
- Place the mixture into the refrigerator to chill.
- Divide the mix into 200g portions. You will need 1 x 200g portion to serve 4 people for this particular recipe, and you can freeze the remaining mixture for later use.
Pain d’épices
- Combine milk, cinnamon, nutmeg, star anise, vanilla, ginger and zests in a medium saucepan over medium heat and heat until just steaming. Cover pan, remove from heat and let spices steep in milk for approximately 1 hour or until cooled. Drain and set aside.
- Preheat the oven to 175°C. Combine the egg and honey in a large bowl, then whisk in the flours and baking powder. Choose any baking dish large enough to accommodate the mixture, and pour the mixture into the dish.
- Bake for 25 minutes. Pull the cake into pieces then place into a dehydrator until dried. Transfer to a food processor and process to form crumbs.
- Heat the butter in a frying pan over medium heat until foaming. Add crumbs and cook for a few minutes until toasted, then transfer to paper towels to drain.
- Set aside to cool, then season with sugar and mixed spice.
Pain d’épices Ice Cream
- Whisk egg yolks, sugar, dextrose, honey, and stabiliser in a large bowl until combined
- Add, milk, cream, cinnamon, star-anise, vanilla, zests and salt. Transfer to a large saucepan over low heat and cook, constantly stirring, until the mixture reaches 82℃ on a thermometer.
- Pass the ice-cream mix through a fine sieve.
- Using an ice-cream machine and following the manufacturer’s instructions, blend the mixture than place in the freezer overnight. Churn again the following day.
- Once churned, fold 2 cups of the pain de d’épices through the ice-cream and place in the freezer again until frozen.
To Prepare and Serve
- Getting the soufflé moulds right is pivotal! Place 4 x 250ml-300ml-capacity soufflé moulds in the fridge until chilled.
- Using softened butter, brush the insides of each mould until completely coated.
- Return the moulds to the fridge until the butter is set, then repeat twice more to create two more coats of butter.
- Dust the inside of the soufflé molds with fine caster sugar. This process will stop the soufflé from sticking to the porcelain when you bake it.
- Preheat the oven to 175°C.
- Place 200g of the Soufflé Base mixture in a large bowl and whisk until smooth.
- In a separate large bowl and using a stand mixer or hand-held mixer, whip the eggwhites, adding sugar gradually, until thickened.
- Take one-third of the egg white mixture and gently fold it into the Soufflé Base mixture. Repeat with remaining thirds.
- Place the mixture into a piping bag and pipe the mixture evenly amoung the 4 prepared moulds.
- Bake the soufflé for 7-8 minutes until each soufflé has risen around 4cm from the top of the mould. Remove from the oven.
- Serve each souffle topped with a scoop of ice-cream and a little of the remaining pain d’épices crumb.