My First Cheese Souffle

Aimee (my roommate) made cheese souffle for dinner the other night. I didn't actually eat it. I didn't actually see it. But the idea of it inspired me. All you really need is cheese, milk, and eggs. Okay and a few other things. And to be technical, I only made 1/2 of a cheese souffle and I ate the whole thing. It was THAT good. Here is the full (non half) recipe, but my slightly modified version (pretty close to the real version except that it called for cream of tartar. And who just HAS that on hand?)

Ingredients
Butter, room temperature, for greasing the souffle
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/3 cups milk, hot
4 large egg yolks
About 1 cup sharp Cheddar
5 egg whites plus 1 tablespoon water

Digression: recipies never tell you the REAL order you should do things in. They just assume you do all your prep in advance like on cooking shows and work at lightning speed once you get going. (one Rachael Ray recipe I made said that it would take 30 minutes to prep. It took me 1.5 hours. Lesson: I am NOT Rachael Ray). So I'm going to give you the instructions step-by-step exactly as I did it because there is a bit of complexity here and it worked well for me. I'm not trying to insult your intelligence; I  have just personally made too many mistakes by not reading a full recipe and then realizing halfway through that something is whack. Okay, digression over.

1. Remove butter from refrigerator to bring to room temperature
2. Preheat oven to 375
3. Mix up flour, mustard, garlic powder and salt in a small bowl and set aside.
4. Separate your egg whites into a medium-sized mixing bowl. Save the yolks and put them in another bowl.
5. Beat yolks with a fork until creamy. Add water to egg whites and beat with a hand mixer until fluffy and stiff.
6. Grease an 8-inch souffle mold or casserole dish with a bit of your now-room-temperature butter. Add the grated Parmesan and roll around the mold to cover the sides. Cover with plastic wrap and place into the freezer for 5 minutes.(just keep a general eye on the time because I'M not going to tell you when to take it out)
7. Heat your milk in the microwave (1.5 minutes on high should do it). Put all of your ingredients at hand near the stove.
8. Melt 3 TBSP butter in a small sauce pan on low heat. Allow all of the water to cook out.

9. Whisk the flour mixture into the butter and cook for about 2 minutes, continuing to whisk and scraping the sides of the pan as necessary.
10. Whisk in the hot milk and turn the heat to high. Once it reaches a boil, remove from heat.
11. Whisk in the egg yolks. (keep whisking!).
12. Whisk in the cheese until smooth (yeah, whisk that sucker!)
13. Okay, STOP whisking. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites, one large spoonful at a time.
14. Awesome! Now pour the mixture into your souffle mold (did you remember to take it out of the freezer? You forgot, didn't you? Oh well, it should still work!)
15. Put it on a foil pie pan and bake for 35 minutes.

Voila! Cheese souffle! Okay, I didn't take a picture because I ate it all before I remembered. Oops.