Don't Open the Oven?

Soufflé. A dish full of excitement and anticipation and sometimes disappointment. I am sure you have all heard the horror stories of opening an oven while a soufflé is cooking and ruining it because it falls. Well, that's all well and good when you have an oven into which you can see. If not, and the oven happens to be old as dirt, with no temperature gauge, and runs on gas it might be a good idea to open it ever so slightly to see if perhaps the top is burning. Just an idea. I swear my soufflé didn't burn. I'm merely giving you a simple suggestion :)



Soufflé batter.



Soufflé in a bain marie, waiting to go into the oven.



Here is the aforementioned oven.

And here are the burned soufflés, albeit cooked perfectly inside and with a nice rise, but I can't get past the top.

Here is a soufflé cooked in an oven into which you can see. Notice the difference in color. It's slight, but if you try hard, I bet you can see a difference.

On to Blinis. No, not Belinis, the awesome frozen champagne and peach drink. After the burnt top, I would have welcomed a vat full of belinis, but instead I was summoned to make about 15 of Russia's version of the pancake. It's like, hasn't Aunt Jemima perfected those? Do I really need to learn the russian version?

Pancake batter.

Whipped (by hand again - you should see my arms muscles!) egg whites will be added to the pancake batter to make blini batter.

And the blinis are made.

Chef showing us all the different egg garnishes.

Finished product.

Now, I'll take a Belini please!