I realise I am a bit late to the blackberry party but I made this last week and was feeling rather chuffed with myself. You hear the word soufflé and most people (unless you are a whizz kid in the kitchen) shudder at the thought. This is what happened to me not so long ago. Let me tell you a little story about chocolate soufflé and self confidence.

A little story…

I recently was on an advertising video shoot for a large retailer where I was asked to be the food stylist. I was super excited and nervous at the same time. I arrived full of beans and ready to start when the first thing the director asked me to do was to make a chocolate soufflé. I smiled and said yes right away whilst quietly panicking in my mind. I’d never made a chocolate soufflé before?! How was I about to make one for an advert?!

Luckily as the morning went on, it was decided that the chef who was on screen was going to make it live so it could be filmed. I exhaled a sigh of relief. However, the chef was given a duff recipe and the soufflé was a disaster. It rose up and then came tumbling down, making an almighty mess.

We were all deflated, no pun intended. The rest of the shoot had to commence as we were against the clock. The director pulls me to the side and says to me, ‘If you can figure out the best way to make a chocolate soufflé that will hold long enough for me to get a shot, I will be the happiest man alive’. I smiled and said I would give it my best shot, feeling nervous all the while.

I went home that evening and with the little time I had, I researched as much as I could about soufflés. The next morning I went into that shoot feeling apprehensive about the whole thing but kept smiling and carried on.

I found a recipe on BBC Good Food (The most reliable website!) and gave it my best shot. I whisked and I measured and I said a soufflé prayer. Watching the oven intently, my soufflés were rising beautifully. I felt like I was walking on air. Now the question was whether they would hold long enough for the shot. And they did!

The entire team congratulated me, the director was delighted and we all celebrated with a nice chocolate soufflé. Anyway the moral of my story is that if I had a bit more self confidence, I wouldn’t have worried so much for two days! With confidence and BBC Good Food, anything is possible.

So here’s the link to the recipe – Chocolate soufflé. It was surprisingly easy!

I decided to add blackberries to mine as its blackberry season and I seem to be surrounded by them. I walk down the canal and see blackberry bushes everywhere so I thought why not. I’ve never foraged for anything before and it was a lot of fun! My husband and I turned into little kids finding blackberries and shouting to each other ‘Ooh there’s a big one!’. The heavens opened and we found ourselves carrying on as we were addicted. Then we ran home.

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I placed a few blackberries at the bottom of my soufflé dish to give it a sweet tang. I also boiled up the rest of the blackberries with a little sugar and made a blackberry sauce to go with it. It was absolutely delicious and felt very posh. I will be making these again!

Thank you for reading. I’d like to say a very happy birthday to my beautiful Mum who would have been 61 today. I know she will be smiling down on me right now and telling me not to worry so much. Have a lovely evening everyone!

I am a food photographer and stylist based in Milton Keynes. Please check out my website to see more of my work at www.jbimagery.co.uk.