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Dessert

Cheese Souffle

A baked cheese soufflé made with butter, flour, milk, parmesan, egg yolks, and folded egg 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

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

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Mix in the flour, salt, cayenne, and milk, stirring constantly until thickened.

  3. Stir in the grated cheese until melted.

  4. Remove from heat and mix in the egg yolks.

Fold and bake

  1. Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks and gently fold them into the mixture.

  2. Pour the mixture into a small round tin, filling it halfway.

  3. Pin a napkin around the dish.

  4. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

  5. Serve immediately after baking.

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 + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + parmesan cheesetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  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 and set the base, while whipped whites lift the soufflé as it rises.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air that expands in the oven to make the soufflé rise.
Butter
Enriches the roux, adding fat and flavour to the base.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a stable base that holds the soufflé up.
Milk
Forms the liquid of the white sauce that the flour thickens.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury flavour and body to the base as it melts into the sauce.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites must be whipped to stiff peaks and folded gently so the air bubbles survive. Overmixing deflates them, and the soufflé will rise less and may be 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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