Souffle fell!
I'm new to baking, and it's probably ill advised but as you may know, I'm in it to make my OWN recipes. :)
After doing some research, I decided to go right for what I perceived as the holy grail, souffles. After doing some research, I came up with this.
My lemon souffle recipe is...
(4 Eggs)
Custard-
Yolks
1 Cup Sugar
1/2 Cup Lemon Juice
1/2 Cup Flour
Meringue-
Egg Whites
1/4 Sugar
What I did:
I started by separating the egg whites and the egg yolks, CERTAIN not to include any fats that might ruin my meringue in the form of dirty pans or yolk. Leaving the whites to warm to room temperature, I began working on the custard. I combined all of the ingredients, and beat them with a whisk until it was a smooth slightly thick liquid, close to the consistency of good hot chocolate. I then put my stove on the lowest heat setting, and cooked while constantly stirring for about 25 minutes, when it started to thicken slightly. I let it cool, and as it did it turned a perfect custard yellow, and took on a perfect consistency, while tasting slightly of flour.
Then, while I waited for my custard to cool, I went to work on the meringue. I added the egg whites to a pristine stainless steel bread mixing bowl, washed my whisk thoroughly, dried it, as not to disturb the fluffing of my egg whites, and began beating. I beat them by hand for about thirty minutes, mostly because I'm a sentimental man, and I felt it would be almost sacrilegious to put so much work into something and use a machine to do it. As it took on a white color, and a texture similar to whipping cream, I added my 1/4 cup sugar in small increments, until I could lift up my whisk, turn it upside down, and have my meringue stay at about a 45 degree angle. Satisfied, I measured out 2 cups of the meringue, approximately half. I added it to a bowl and vigorously stirred it into an equal 2 cups of the now slightly above room temperature custard. I then took the other half of the meringue and gently folded it into the mixture I had already.
After thoroughly mixing, I heated the over to 400 degrees, and added the pan of my souffle batter. This pan mind you is not for souffles, it's a standard round, glass pan (See the picture I included.) that I thought would work. I set the timer for 25 minutes and practically tiptoed away after shutting the oven door gently. The timer went off, and I turned the oven light on to check the souffle. It was golden brown, slightly depressed in the middle, and not overflowing from the pan as I expected all though it had risen. I dared not leave it in any longer, and took it out gently only to spend about two or three hours for the result I posted above.
Not only did it not hold, but it tasted very "eggy."
Looking for pointers, is there anything I did wrong? Adjustments that need to be made to my recipe?
Thanks in advanced, I assume this is the right place, a souffle is "almost" a cake right? :)