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Cheese Souffle

A baked cheese soufflé made with a white sauce, eggs, and grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cheese Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the base

  1. Make a white sauce by melting the butter, then whisking in the flour and milk along with the salt and cayenne pepper.

  2. Remove from heat, let cool, and stir in the beaten egg yolks.

Fold and bake

  1. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites gently.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered baking dish.

  3. Place the baking dish in a pan of hot water and bake for 30 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

  4. 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.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich the base while whipped whites create the airy structure that lifts the soufflé.
Flour
Starch thickens the butter and milk into a white sauce that holds the soufflé's body.
Butter
Fat enriches the white sauce and adds flavour to the base.
Milk
Liquid forms the white sauce with the flour, giving the base its smooth, creamy texture.
Grated cheese
Adds rich savoury flavour and fat to the sauce base.

The step that matters

Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites gently. Deflating the whites by stirring or overmixing releases the air trapped in the foam, so the soufflé rises less and turns dense. Gentle folding keeps the bubbles intact for lift in the oven.

“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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