Skip to main content
Dessert

Souffle of Chestnuts

A sweet chestnut soufflé made by roasting, puréeing, sweetening, and baking chestnuts into small balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Souffle of Chestnuts

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the chestnut paste

  1. Roast the chestnuts and peel them carefully.

  2. Pound the chestnuts in a mortar and pass the puree through a sieve.

  3. Return the puree to the mortar, add sugar, and the egg white; work to a smooth paste.

Shape and coat

  1. Mould the mixture into balls the size of a large chestnut.

  2. Roll each ball in beaten egg white, then drain on a sieve for a few minutes.

  3. Roll again in egg white and crystallized sugar.

  4. Arrange on buttered paper, spaced apart.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 25 minutes.

  2. Once cooled, arrange in a pyramid on a folded napkin.

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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Chestnut + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together647 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Chestnut + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together965 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Chestnuts
Provide the starchy, sweet bulk of the paste that gives the sweets their body.
Sugar
Sweetens the paste and helps it hold a smooth, workable texture.
Egg white
Binds the paste and, beaten, forms a glossy coating that helps the sugar adhere.

The step that matters

Working the paste to a smooth consistency. If the paste is grainy or too wet, the shaped balls may crack or spread in the oven. Thorough pounding and sieving remove fibres and lumps, and the egg white must be fully incorporated so the mixture holds its shape.

Swap the chestnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pecansfits better
  3. Filbertfits about as well
  4. Chestnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, butter. 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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes