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Cheese Souffle

A baked cheese soufflé made with butter, flour, milk, cayenne pepper, salt, cheese, and egg yolks and whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 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.

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the flour and mix well.

  3. Gradually pour in the scalded milk and bring to a boil.

  4. Stir in the cayenne, salt, and cheese.

Finish and bake

  1. Remove from heat and mix in the beaten egg yolks until thick and lemon colored.

  2. Cool the mixture slightly, then gently fold in the beaten egg whites until combined.

  3. Pour into a buttered baking dish.

  4. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 30 to 35 minutes.

  5. 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. Cheese + milktop 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
Whites trap air for lift, and yolks thicken and enrich the base for structure.
Flour
Starch thickens the butter and milk into a stable sauce that holds the soufflé up.
Butter
Fat coats the flour and adds richness and smooth texture to the base.
Old english cheese
Adds sharp, savory flavor and fat that enriches the base.
Milk
Liquid that gelatinizes with flour into the thick béchamel-style base.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. Whites hold air bubbles that make the soufflé rise. Deflating them by stirring vigorously, or folding into a base that is too warm, loses that lift and makes the result 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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