rhubarb souffle

When presented with too many leftover egg whites recently (probably as a result of making too much ice cream), and not having enough for an angel food cake, I began to scour my cookbooks for interesting recipes. In the Silver Spoon cookbook, I came across a recipe for rhubarb souffle. Given my love for rhubarb, this immediately seemed appealing. Also, the entire concept of making fruit souffles seemed to create endless possibilities. It essentially involved making a rhubarb compote on the stove top, then stirring the compote into whipped egg whites. That the recipe said to stir and not fold the rhubarb into the whites seemed odd to me, as well as clearly destined to deflate the whites, but somehow it seemed to work. In retrospect, there isn't a drop of fat in the recipe, which probably explains it. It miraculously also seemed to be more stable than past souffles I have made. Lifting it out of the oven, it looked amazing, like a giant pink meringue.

Rhubarb Souffle, The Silver Spoon
7oz. rhubarb, sliced into thin matchsticks
1C. powdered sugar
3T. superfine sugar
4 egg whites (120g)

Sprinkle powdered sugar ove r the rhubarb and sit at room temperature 2 hours. Preheat oven to 325 deg F. Grease a souffle dish, or other oven-proof dish with butter and coat with sugar. Add superfine sugar to 2T. water in a sauce pan, and bring to a boil. Add the rhubarb and cook for 2 minutes. Beat the egg whites until stiff; add rhubarb mixture and beat for 1 minute. Pour into prepared dish and bake for 25 minutes.