Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Cheese 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.
Make the base
Combine the bread crumbs and milk in a saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring until smooth.
Remove from heat and stir in the egg yolks, cheese, and butter.
Fold and bake
Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the mixture.
Pour the mixture into a baking dish placed in a pan of boiling water.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,130 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,962 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,426 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Egg whites
- Beaten to stiff peaks, they trap air and give the soufflé its light, risen structure.
- Egg yolks
- Enrich the base and help it set into a tender, custard-like texture when baked.
- Bread crumbs
- Thicken the milk into a smooth base that holds the folded egg whites.
- Grated cheese
- Adds rich flavor and fat to the base, and helps it brown in the oven.
The step that matters
Folding the beaten egg whites. Stirring instead of folding knocks out the air trapped in the whites, so the soufflé will rise less and turn dense.
“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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