Name: Soufflé Glacé, a LA Marly
Ingredients: 30 ripe apricots; 500 grams (about 2 cups) vanilla sugar; 500 grams (about 2 cups) whipped cream, lightly sweetened; coarse sea salt; toasted almonds, chopped, for garnish

Why it works: Apricot and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 608 recipes. Both carry 4-methoxybenzaldehyde, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

Soufflé Glacé, a LA Marly

Ingredients

30 ripe apricots
500 grams (about 2 cups) vanilla sugar
500 grams (about 2 cups) whipped cream, lightly sweetened
coarse sea salt
toasted almonds, chopped, for garnish

Directions

Prepare the dish

Prepare a soufflé dish by wrapping the top edges with a strip of paper, securing it with string if needed.
Place the dish in a small ice cave, surrounded by salted ice, and chill for 20 to 25 minutes.

Make the mousse

Peel the apricots, remove the pits, and pass the flesh through a fine sieve.
In a bowl, mix the apricot puree with the vanilla sugar.
Set the bowl over crushed ice and whip the mixture until it thickens.
Add a few drops of cream or almond essence, then fold in three-quarters of the whipped cream.
Pour the mixture into the chilled soufflé dish, filling it 2 centimeters above the edges.

Freeze and serve

Seal the dish with raw pastry and cover it with a thick layer of salted ice.
Chill the soufflé for 2 hours.
Remove the dish from the ice, run a warm knife around the edge to release it, and sprinkle the top with chopped toasted almonds mixed with powdered sugar.
Serve immediately.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Apricot + vanillatop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together608 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).
Vanilla + almondtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,961 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Apricot + almondtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together852 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together35,032 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Vanilla and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Apricots: Provide the fruit puree that gives the soufflé its flavor and body.
Vanilla sugar: Adds sweetness and softens the texture by lowering the freezing point.
Whipped cream: Adds air and fat, giving the frozen soufflé a light, creamy texture.

The step that matters

Whipping the apricot mixture over crushed ice until it thickens. Keeping the mixture very cold while whipping helps it hold the air bubbles trapped inside. Warm mixture collapses more easily, so the soufflé loses its lift and becomes dense after freezing.