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Dessert

Willard Souffle

A light strawberry soufflé made with flour, milk, eggs, butter, powdered sugar, and fresh strawberries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Willard 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 butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add flour and blend well.

  3. Gradually pour in milk while stirring constantly.

  4. Beat egg yolks until thick and lemon colored, then gradually add powdered sugar while beating.

  5. Combine the two mixtures and cool slightly.

Assemble and bake

  1. Fold in the beaten egg whites until stiff and dry.

  2. Cut fresh strawberries in halves and place them at the bottom of individual baking dishes, sprinkling with sugar.

  3. Fill the dishes three-fourths full with the soufflé mixture.

  4. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until firm and delicately browned.

  5. Serve each soufflé with a slice of strawberry ice cream.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they trap air that lifts the soufflé as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Thicken the base and add richness and structure to the soufflé mixture.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk base so it can hold the whipped egg whites.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that carries the flour and yolks.
Fresh strawberries
Add fruity flavor and moisture at the bottom of each dish.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites until stiff and dry.. Folding gently keeps the air bubbles in the whites intact. Overmixing deflates them, so the soufflé will not rise properly 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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