A propper souffle will not fall. There are many methods to make one, and there are varying degrees to which a souflee will stay upright for, but 40-60 seconds is becaus all thats been used here is egg whites to keep it up. here is a recipe that was tought to me by an old pastry cheff I used to work with - Ingredients: 50g plain flour 50g Butter (unsalted) 75g Sugar 250ml milk 1 egg white Method: Combine flour and butter (buerre manié) with your fingers untill all butter has been rubbed through flour. Do not melt the butter, use room temperature soft butter – important! Add sugar to the burre manié in the same fashion. Must be done AFTER, not at the same time the buerre manié is done – important! Bring milk to boil (important! Milk must come to boiling point before you turn it down), turn down to simmer. Whisk in buerre manié bit by bit. Cook off on low heat untill comes away from sides. Add egg white and mix in off the heat. think choux pastry and you get the idea. This is just the base. So if you want to add flavour to it, you must wait till the mix is cool, mix some melted chocolate or straberry coulis etc into it, then fold beaten egg whites to make the souflee batter to cook. Place in a buttered and suggared ramekin. Standard one serve size, not the big family size ones From memory it is then into a 160 celcius degree oven, for eitther 18 minutes or 21 minutes exactly. Try 18, if it falls, then it is 21 minutes. DO NOT open the oven while it is cooking. EVER. It will fail. During my years in commercial kitchens, all the cheffs ive worked with swore by their souffle recipes, and were downright defensive if i suggested they try this one. They would rant and rave about how the recipe theyve been using is one thats been the best for years. i would then just ignor ethem and use mine while they thought i was using theirs. When they saw the results, they would tell me how good thier recipe was, and that infront of me was proof. Id let them belive this for some time untill they began to notice the consistency in height and longevity and ask me how i got it like that. Thats when id expose that I was using my recipe instead. Nothing worse than a cheffs broken ego. It usually resulte din yelling and ranting for the remainder of service. The next day I would be asked for teh recipe. Each time it was a "no" This isnt a better than yours recipe, more of a aditional one to add to your repetoire as i have yours

By Chris Mojak on October 05, 2011

Here comes the sugar coma! :^P My my that stuff looks so drool worthy....

By jdp on February 02, 2011

Dear Paula, Thanks for your recipes. I truly believe you are the best cook in the world. Love, your fan, Eugenie

By Eugenie on February 01, 2011

Holy moly... this looks phenomenal! Great recipe...just in time for Valentine's Day!

By Brian @ A Thought For Food on February 01, 2011