Instructions: IN THE WORLD of dining, no drama is more riveting than the one surrounding the souffle. It starts building early in the meal, when the souffle must be ordered: The anticipation is sealed, a captive audience guaranteed. Then, when it is finally ready, it is rushed through the dining room like a crying baby to its mother, so that when it arrives at the table - inflated, determined and wobbly - the reaction is inevitably the same: The diner is silenced, in awe of the genius who concocted it.

For the assumption is that to create cookings most fragile and temperamental dish takes immense skill, the finesse of a dancer, the timing of a comedian.

Which is why chefs have never let it die. Creme brulee may one day retire, but the souffle will persist. And though chefs will never concede the point, it is not because the souffle takes such talent, but because it is so easy.

Chefs know that souffles are forgiving. They know its not necessary to whisper while a souffle bakes and that opening the oven door will not make a souffle fall. And they know that souffles can be made ahead of time, assembled completely, then simply baked to order. Generations of intimidated home cooks could have triumphed with those three small tips.

Meanwhile, chefs have been changing the souffle, too, keeping it up to date.

The classic and often stodgy souffle - made with pastry cream or bechamel, with a sauce poured in at the table - is being replaced with souffles made without flour and ingredients so flavorful that no sauce is needed at all. In New York, Le Cirque 2000s chocolate souffle is flourless, yolkless and made a day ahead.

Lutece serves a grits souffle.

These are hardly disrespectful, though, for a souffle is actually one of cookings most frivolous pursuits. A souffle should be playful. Think of it as nothing more than an omelet, and few omelets are served without some kind of adornment. I have made many souffles, and I have discovered that despite my efforts to challenge the classic recipe with loose liquid bases and vigorous folding, it is difficult to fail. And more than that, the possibilities are endless.

Sauce with egg whites
To begin, it is helpful to understand just what a souffle is. It is, essentially, a flavorful sauce suspended in whipped egg whites and baked in the oven. As the souffle bakes, the heat causes the air in the egg whites to expand, separating the base into a fluffy custard, sealing in any aromas and bursting vertically out of its baking dish.

When it comes out of the oven and begins to cool, the air contracts and the souffle deflates, which is why it must be eaten quickly. If you let a souffle deflate, you will be left with an omelet. (But one that will be much lighter than a typical omelet. Any failed souffle can simply be turned out of its dish and served without shame, like an unmolded custard.)

A good souffle is rich with contradiction. It has a firm outer shell, while inside it is impossibly light; it is supported by egg, but its taste is not compromised by it; it defies gravity and yet is fragile. And if it is correctly made, spoonfuls of rich, gauzy foam and all of its contradictions will disappear on the palate. Anyone who can create that experience is worthy of praise. and anyone who can make an omelet and whip cream can make a souffle.

Classic souffles are made up of two parts: the base and the whipped egg whites. The base is a kind of sauce, often thickened with egg yolks. Many recipes call for about one egg per person. So if you are making a souffle for four, you would use four to five eggs, reserving the yolks for the base.

Adding taste, texture
Anything else that goes into the base has one of two purposes: flavoring or thickening. This could mean, for a savory souffle, making a bechamel sauce with flour, butter and milk and then adding egg yolks to enrich it. Or aromatics could be used: sauteed garlic and herbs, crab meat, cheese, even asparagus puree.

Classically sweet souffles have a base of pastry cream. But pastry cream is time-consuming. A more modern approach would be to use creme anglaise, a simple sauce of milk, eggs and sugar, adding pureed or whole fruit, melted chocolate or even something as simple as almond extract for scent. Simpler still: Omit the yolks and use a dense fruit puree or jam as a base.

Whatever the base, it needs to be highly flavored so that once the egg whites are folded in, the flavor does not disappear. Preparing the egg whites is perhaps the most crucial part. Recipes often instruct you to add a little salt, lemon juice or cream of tartar before whisking to help the egg whites form smaller, tighter bubbles. I have found that the three work equally well, though

In a savory souffle I lean toward salt, which also seasons the whites. With sweet souffles, it is helpful to add a little powdered sugar at the beginning

(about a tablespoon for every four egg whites). This helps the whites form tight bonds and for the finished souffles to rise evenly in tall, firm cylinders.

A happy medium

The whites should be whisked until they form peaks somewhere between soft and stiff. If they are too soft, the whites tend not to rise to their potential; too stiff, and they may begin to break down.

Once they are whisked, though, they are extremely durable. Classic French cookbooks will tell you to fold the base and whites together gently. But if the base and whites do not form a homogeneous mixture, the souffle may rise unevenly and have pockets of egg white. Using a rubber spatula, I fold mine vigorously, turning the bowl as I fold the ingredients over again and again, and have never had a souffle flop.

Beyond that, there are just a few details to know. Buttering souffle molds is not the time to be shy about butter. Many classic recipes say to butter the mold once, put it in the freezer and then butter it again - a great waste of time.

Instead, use soft butter and smear it on generously the first time, making sure to cover every inch of the mold. Another method is to add a light dusting of a dry ingredient to coat the butter, which gives the souffle a kind of lattice to climb while baking. With sweet souffles, sugar is often used, and with savory, bread crumbs or finely grated cheese. If the coating is too thin or misses a spot, the souffle mixture could latch onto that spot and leave you with a lopsided souffle.

The mold should be refrigerated or frozen so that when the souffle mixture is added, the butter does not slide down the sides. And when the molds are being filled, the filling should be dropped in the center of the mold and allowed to settle by itself. The filling should be highest in the center and slope down to the sides of the mold, not be smoothed over with a spatula as with a cake batter.

When the souffle is in the oven, you want it to rise as quickly as possible before the sides seal and stop expanding. One way to help this is to place the baking rack on the bottom shelf of the oven and to put a baking sheet on the rack while the oven heats. When the souffle dish, cool from the freezer, begins to warm, the souffle will expand without cooking through too quickly.

Can be made ahead
What puts off many home cooks is the assumption that souffles are a last-minute affair. But almost any souffle can be made ahead. Simply complete the recipe up to the point of baking, fill the molds and cover them with plastic wrap, then refrigerate until a few minutes before baking. If the egg whites have been whipped well and the mixture combined thoroughly, it will hold for several hours. The cool temperature helps firm up the ingredients, too.

Though I have made souffles up to a day ahead, I have found them to be at their peak when baked within four hours. Uniform homogeneous mixtures such as chocolate, cheese and vanilla hold best. But ones with ingredients such as mushrooms or onions, which weep over time, or looser mixtures such as yolkless souffles, may not rise as well.

But even in those cases, the base can be made and the molds prepared, so that all you have to do at the last minute is whisk the egg whites. Thats like whipping cream for an apple pie. With just a few days of experimenting, souffles streamed from my kitchen with a kind of ease, a kind of liberty to wander from the classic, and often with fewer ingredients than most cakes. Bored with the Parmesan souffle found in so many restaurants, I tried adding the gratings of a hard sheeps milk cheese to a plain base. It was nutty and earthy and as complex as the cheese itself, a perfect contrast to a souffles light texture. Even better was a goat cheese souffle, with lumps of the soft cheese dropped into a plain souffle base. Each bite was different: Some were like eggy custard; others had pockets of warm tangy goat cheese.

With that same thread of thought, I had another success. Rather than using milk in the base, I tried creme fraiche. It was the lightest, most delicately flavored souffle you can imagine, and it had just four ingredients: creme fraiche, butter, flour and eggs. It inspired another idea: a souffle base made with buckwheat flour, so that it is like a blini. When the souffle comes out of the oven, break open the center and spoon in a little creme fraiche and caviar.

Finishing touches at the table are also a good idea. With a mushroom souffle, into which I folded chopped sweated mushrooms, I sprinkled on a few drops of truffle oil just before serving. The heat of the souffle made the oil come alive, and its essence trickled down through the base.

What is remarkable about the souffle is that knowing its secrets does not spoil its charm. I have made dozens of souffles, and not once have I failed to be amazed when Ive opened the oven door and peered in at one, inflating like air in my lungs.

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