Souffles are scary. Or at least that’s what I’d always thought. Turns out that they are pretty easy to make, and if you do it right you’ll come off looking like a culinary genius to all of your friends. It’s a win/win!
So if you’ve been too intimidated to try making a souffle in the past, give this one a go – you won’t be disappointed! One of the most important things to remember about making a souffle is that you can’t have any fat in the whites when you are beating them. That means your bowl and whisk have to be squeaky clean when you start, and you have to make sure you don’t have any “goldfish” or bits of yolk floating in your whites. Any fat present in the whites will keep them from holding air and your souffle won’t rise properly.
Your other issue will be timing. Once they come out of the oven, you only have a minute or two before they deflate. By the time I got the one in the photo above out of the oven, and crossed the house to my office/studio to take the photos, it had already sunk by about half. It still tasted amazing though so it doesn’t really matter unless you are all about the drama of the souffle, in which case you get it to the table IMMEDIATELY after taking them out, so you can wow your guests with your mad skills. Other than that, making a souffle is a fairly simple process, and it’s the perfect low carb dessert so you should definitely try it soon!
I had some raspberries left over from the low carb raspberry cheesecake bars, thanks to the generous coupons that the Driscoll’s Berry people had sent me, so I decided to make a raspberry souffle with them. I wanted to experiment with a molten chocolate center just for something different, but I wasn’t sure if the chocolate would keep it from rising. I decided to go for it and put a few chunks of dark chocolate in the center of each souffle before baking. It did cause them to rise a little unevenly, but I didn’t mind, and it was lovely to see the chocolate peeking out through the top when I took them out of the oven.
Flavor-wise these were amazing! The smooth, dark chocolate really complemented the brightly intense flavor of the raspberries. I LOVED it! So much so that I ate the chocolate out of three of them. I’m not proud of it but I’d do it again! ha ha! You’ll want to do the same thing, once you’ve tasted them! And at only 57 calories and 2.5g net carbs each, you should really make these souffles ASAP!
Low Carb Raspberry Souffle w/ Molten Chocolate Center
- Yield: 6 servings 1x
Ingredients
- 1 cup fresh raspberries
- 5 Tbsp granulated sugar substitute*
- 4 egg whites
- 1 tsp butter
- 1/2 oz dark chocolate, chopped
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees with a rack in the center.
- Puree the raspberries and press through a fine sieve to get all of the seeds out. Add 1 Tbsp granulated sugar substitute and set aside.
- Beat egg whites until thickened and start sprinkling the remaining sugar substitute into them until all of it has been added and you have stiff glossy peaks.
- Grease 6 small ramekins with butter.
- Fold 1/3 of the egg whites into the raspberry puree (I totally hear Prince singing Raspberry Beret every time I type that!) very gently. Once mixed, fold the raspberry puree mixture back into the remaining egg whites and fold again until there are no streaks of pink left.
- Gently scoop some souffle mixture into the ramekins until half full. Divide the chocolate between the ramekins and then fill to the top with souffle mixture. Place ramekins on a cookie sheet with at least a few inches between them and put on the center rack in the oven. Bake for 9 minutes until golden brown and puffed up. Serve IMMEDIATELY!
Notes
*When the recipe calls for granulated sugar substitute it refers to one that measures cup for cup like sugar. If you are using a more concentrated sweetener, then use my measurement as though it were sugar and use whatever the equivalent is of your brand of sweetener. For example, if you are using Truvia, it would be 1.25 tsp per 1 Tbsp of sugar – so you would need 6.25 tsp for this recipe. You can find conversion charts for pretty much every sweetener out there online by going to your brand’s website.
- Category: Dessert
- Cuisine: Souffle
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 souffle
- Calories: 57
- Fat: 3g
- Carbohydrates: 2.5g net
- Protein: 3g
Laura says
How much puree do you end up with? I started with 1 cup of raspberry, but after pureeing get it through the sieve I ended up with only about a 1/4 cup of puree
Marisa F says
I just made these after spending all morning picking black raspberries (and then shopping for ramekins). They were absolutely amazing. My husband and I ate four of them while standing in the kitchen. The last two actually made it out to the couch.
Thanks for the recipe!
★★★★★
Ashley says
Hi Melissa! This looks like an amazingly indulgent Valentines day treat- and even better that it is low carb! Have you experimented with how this recipe “saves”? I would only be making it for one, maybe two people at the most and was wondering if I could stash the rest in my fridge for the next days dessert. Thanks for all of your amazing recipes! I’ve made about half of them I think and none of them dissapoint! :)
Mellissa Sevigny says
Hi Ashley! Generally souffles aren’t good even a half hour later, let alone the next day! I would keep this one for when you can eat it immediately for best results! But if you do try it the next day, do let me know if it works OK? Thanks!
Amanda says
hey what exact brand of substitute sugar did you use for this recipe?
Mellissa Sevigny says
For these I think it was granulated Splenda – hope it works for you!
the 3volution of j3nn says
These are so pretty and dainty! I have Zsweet, which I think would work perfectly with this. Yum!
Jen says
What a fun idea! I would love it if you entered this in my Power of Pink Challenge. Each participant is entered to win a $100 donation to the charity of their choice. For info and rules, check it out here: http://www.beantownbaker.com/2012/10/5th-annual-power-of-pink-challenge.html
Mellissa Sevigny says
Thanks for the invite Jen, I’ll check it out!
Kim Bee says
You my dear are an evil genius. It’s why I love you. Well one of about a gazillion and four reasons. Muah.
Mellissa Sevigny says
Thanks Chick, right back atcha! :)
Laila says
I SO want to try this~ with pumpkin! (I’m gonna do the raspberry one, too~ LOL) I have raw cacao nibs that I’m thinking to sub the dark chocolate with. I like a little kick once in a while. And while I think about, maybe a pomegranate one….
Mellissa Sevigny says
Those all sound delicious Laila! The only thing I would caution you against is the cacao nibs, because while I like them too, it’s the melty thing that really works in these. The souffles are so airy in texture that biting into a hard cacao nib might be strange. But maybe not, let me know if you try it and how they come out! :)
Georgina says
These look awesome! I am new to your site as I have recently started low carbing again. Can you tell me if there is a quick easy way to print your recipes? Thanks!
Mellissa Sevigny says
Thanks Georgina and welcome to IBIH! I don’t currently have the capability for a print recipe feature, though I will when I finally get moved over to WordPress with my redesign. Meanwhile you can cut and paste from the blog into a word document for easier printing.
Ginny says
This looks amazing and so simple! Have to try it. Thanks!
Mellissa Sevigny says
Thanks Ginny, hope you like it!!
Tim in CA. says
Am I missing something? I thought dark chocolate had a lot of carbs but I have not seen sugar free dark chocolate at the store?
Mellissa Sevigny says
Tim, I usually use Lindt 90% which is pretty low in carbs because there is very little sugar in it and quite a bit of fiber. For this recipe I used an 80% chocolate that had 4g net carbs for the 1/2 ounce I used – divided between 6 souffles that less than a gram each. The rest comes from the raspberries and egg whites. Because the chocolate melts you get some in every bite so it’s a lot of bang for your calorie/carb buck! Enjoy!
Dana says
In a pinch, you could add dark baker’s chocolate and control your amount of sweetener. Chocolate by itself is ground-up seeds with some amount of fat. Not very carby at all aside from the fiber.
bevvbevv says
So, I continue to love your blog. And I have decided to move to low carb primal, if that makes sense (not as much crazy fake food like some low carbers (says the girl about to make souffles with fake sugar), but cheese please), so my kitchen will muchly resemble yours! I cannot wait to try this! What is your sugar substitute of choice?
Mellissa Sevigny says
Thanks Bevvbevv and welcome to the dark side, mu ha ha ha ha! :) Actually, I don’t do well on artificial sweeteners so I try to avoid them (though I ate the heck out of these!) but for the sake of the blog I do experiment with different ones for posting. I’ve used granulated splenda (or a generic equivalent) or Ideal which is a xylitol/sucralose blend, both of them with good results for baking with. There is a erythritol sweetener called Swerve that seems to be popular with a lot of low carb bloggers but I haven’t tried it yet. Hope you like these!
bevvbevv says
Yeah, overall I try not to consume too much fake sweetener. I react pretty badly to aspartame (cuz, you know, it’s poison) and have general “hmm, fake stuff no bueno” philosophy, but splenda, stevia and xylitol at least don’t make me feel bad, so when I crave something sweet, creamy, baked, I figure it’s the lesser of evils to consume them. Also, I have fallen in love with the texture of organic green and black 85% chocolate. Love.
Mellissa Sevigny says
Same here, I try to avoid the fake sweeteners but every once in awhile when I want to make something sweet for the blog, I will use them. For a long time I couldn’t tolerate any Splenda, though I had some in these and it didn’t bother me – I think the key is to only have it small amounts, widely spaced out so it doesn’t build up in my system. Stevia I have a bad allergic reaction to still and so far no trouble with xylitol. All things in moderation I guess works in this case too. Except with chocolate. ha ha! :) I love green and black, also love Dagoba lavender but that’s got more sugar in it than I’m eating right now. My “go-to” is still the Lindt 90% – it’s not sweet enough to want to over-indulge in, but I still get my “fix” from it!