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Dessert

German Souffle

A baked dessert of stewed apples topped with custard and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,501 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

German Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Assemble

  1. Place thick‑stewed apples in a dish.

  2. Pour boiled custard over the apples.

  3. Whip egg whites until stiff, then sweeten and flavor them.

  4. Pile the whipped egg whites on top of the custard.

Bake

  1. Lightly color the top in the oven until golden.

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.

  1. Apple + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,501 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Sugar and vanilla 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

Apples
Provide the fruit base and moisture beneath the soufflé topping.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard so it holds its body and adds richness.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam to give the topping its light, airy structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the egg whites and helps them whip to a stable foam.

The step that matters

Whipping the egg whites. Egg whites must be beaten until stiff without overbeating, since a stable foam provides the soufflé's lift. Under-whipped whites collapse, and overbeaten whites turn grainy and weep liquid.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, vanilla):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Blueberryfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, vanilla. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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