Soups offer creative types flexibility but not with spicy peppers

There's something about soup that attracts the impetuous cook. OK, so that's a bit stereotypical, but there's an element of truth there — at least where I'm concerned.

Mostly, it's because it is so easy to tinker with a soup recipe. No pumpkin? No worries. Substitute a sweet potato. Fresh out of cannellini beans? Try great northern or navy beans instead. Forgot to get sour cream? Plain yogurt is your answer.

You get the point. Many of us soup-makers consider recipes to be nothing more than a starting point for our creativity, not a precise instruction manual. That's the beauty of soup; it is so forgiving.

Except when you over spice, that is.

I recently made Sweet Potato and Chipotle soup, a recipe I found on Martha Stewart's website, marthastewart.com, that called for ½ to 1 chipotle chile in adobo, chopped. So I pulled out the biggest chile in the can, chopped it up and tossed it in the pot. Then, I figured “what the heck, I like things spicy” and threw in another chile.

Holy Smokes! That was a mistake. This soup was not just hot, it was searing hot. The kind of heat that stays in your mouth for an uncomfortable amount of time no matter how much ice water you guzzle or bread you stuff in your mouth.

So now what? Well, there are a couple of tricks for taming the heat, not all of which will work in all situations. Of course, the most obvious solution is if you have the ingredients on hand, you can always just double up the recipe you just made and leave out the offending spice. You'll end up with twice the amount of soup, but that's what freezers are for, right? Or add more broth or stock to the batch to try and dilute it.

I considered this, but I didn't have any more sweet potatoes and was loathe to go back to the grocery store one more time.

Dairy seems to have a cooling effect so I added a large dollop of sour cream, but plain yogurt or even milk would have worked as well to calm things down a bit. The sour cream improved the situation, but didn't fix it completely. It was still way too hot.

Then I remembered that someone told me sugar can help neutralize the heat. So I added a tablespoon of maple syrup to this recipe and it really seemed to make the heat more palatable. I am not sure if it really neutralized or simply just distracted me by creating that sweet/hot flavor combo. Other ways to add sweetness might be by adding crushed pineapple or grated carrots to the soup.

The combo of syrup and sour cream helped tame my beast of a soup, but there are other options out there. Consider adding acid to cut through the heat. Vinegar or lemon might help and won't change the basic flavor of the soup.

Some say nut butters work. Of course, peanut butter or tahini might not work with every kind of flavor palate. You can also serve your soup over rice. Or add some potatoes, beans or another starchy vegetable, like corn.

Of course, the best way is to avoid the entire situation by adding in the heat slowly or — heaven forbid — actually following the recipe in the first place, but we both know that's not going to happen.

• M. Eileen Brown is the Daily Herald's director of strategic marketing and innovation and an incurable soup-a-holic. She specializes in vegetarian soups and blogs at soupalooza.com.