Crepes and Souffle

My birthday this year was a combination of the old and the new: crepes and desesert soufflé.  When I was 15 years old, my host mother in Nantes would make crepes for dinner and dessert on a routine basis.  She had the traditional cast-iron crepe pan and would turn out these large, flat, beautiful platter-like disks folded over grated gruyere cheese, ham and mushrooms.  For dessert, another crepe with sugar and a squeeze of lemon juice was heavenly.  They were traditionally accompanied by little bowls of hard cider and just delightful.  This was one of those simple but satisfying dinners in the middle of the week. 

So, that's what we did for my mid-week birthday.

Crepes:

Salads made by the kids (sliced endives and sliced radishes - the long, skinny kind):

And the grand finale: Souffle!

I have never had a dessert souffle before.  I didn't have time this week to work a cake and icing into the schedule (and I'm not willing to pull the 10-pm cake shift for my own birthday!) so the souffle seemed like the right answer - no advance preparation and it cooked while the kids did homework and dishes were done. 

First dessert souffle.  Only one question: Why did I wait so long?

I relied on the master for this first foray into dessert souffles, and carefully followed the instructions in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, but it wasn't much different from the cheese souffle we make for dinner - but wow did it rise! 

The base was flour, butter, sugar and milk (instead of just flour, butter and milk in the cheese souffle)

Yolks go into the flour base with some vanilla, the whites are beaten into stiff peaks and folded into the mix,

Then into the oven to wait.....no jumping....

We were pretty sure the souffle wouldn't hold up the candles, so we improvised with a jar of rice.

It was a happy birthday.