Lynne Daniels-Gould wrote:
>Has anyone tried the "egg souffles" from Panera Bread ?
Funny you should ask...I work for Panera (Denver, Colorado) as a
baker :P. I usually end up making about 60 of these every night.
Although, the term "souffle" is a misnomer here. They are not made in
any "souffle" style/technique that I know of! The batter is
quiche-like (and I really wish they would all it quiche). Recipes are
strictly confidential, but I can say that the dough is a french
croissant dough richer than the typical American version; ours is
made with European butter--i.e. higher butter fat content). You could
just use your favorite quiche recipe for the batter (ours contains
Romano and asiago cheese, spinach, bacon, red pepper, Tabasco sauce,
artichoke hearts). The "souffles" are not actually baked in the paper
molds (but I wish we could bake them in the molds because the
dishwashers frequently run the pans through the dishwasher (they are
not supposed to do this) which strips them and makes the "souffles"
stick horribly), but we use specially designed "souffle" pans. If you
can find a pecan roll mold, that will work fine, or even a
Texas-sized muffin pan.
The dough is rolled to about 1/4 inch thick, cut into 3.5x 3.5 inch
squares (of course, this step is done for us in a factory, and the
squares come to us frozen) and then it is stretched by hand to 6x6
inches and then fitted into the mold. Each piece of dough is then
filled with about 1/4 to 1/3 cup of batter, and topped with a bit
more asiago cheese before being folded over.
They are baked at 360 degrees in our rotating oven for about 26
minutes with 20 seconds steam. You will need to bake at 400 degrees
for about 20 minutes or so in a home oven (mist the top generously
with water and then egg wash).
Roxanne