Holly Hill Inn Individual Spoonbread Souffles

• 2 cups milk
• ½ cup white cornmeal
• ½ tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 Tbsp. butter
• 1 Tbsp. minced fresh chives
• 3 egg yolks
• 5 egg whites
• 6 ozs. fresh Capriole goat cheese, shaped into 1-ounce patties
• ¼ cup toasted and chopped hazelnuts
• ¼ cup roughly chopped lemon confit (recipe follows)

Lemon Confit Topping:

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup water
• 3 lemons

1. Heat the milk in a double-boiler or in a bowl over a simmering pot of water. Whisk in the cornmeal and stir until it is the consistency of mush or thickened like a polenta. 
   
2. Add the baking powder, salt and butter and stir until all the butter is melted and incorporated.
   
3. Separate the eggs. Whisk 3 of the yolks together and beat them into the cornmeal mush. Remove the bowl from the heat. Stir in the chives.
   
4. Whisk the 5 egg whites together until stiff. Fold the egg whites into the mush and spoon into buttered ramekins, filling them to the top. Bake at 375 degrees in a convection oven for 12 minutes or 400 degrees in a conventional oven for 15-20 minutes.
   
5. When the spoonbread is almost complete, lay the goat cheese on top and finish baking for the final 2 minutes. Remove and sprinkle the top with lemon confit (recipe below) and toasted hazelnuts. Serve immediately.

Lemon Confit Topping Preparation

1. Combine water and sugar in a saucepan and simmer until all the sugar has dissolved.
2. Wash lemons and slice them as thinly as you can. Remove seeds from the slices and lay in a shallow baking dish.
3. Pour the sugar mixture over the lemon slices and bake in a 200-degree oven until soft, about 2 hours. Cool and reserve. The syrup is delicious in cocktails!
4. Once cool, pull the slices from the syrup and cut for the confit. We cut each slice into quarters.