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Corn Meal Souffle

A baked cornmeal souffle made with milk, butter, eggs, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Corn Meal 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. In a saucepan, heat 1 pint of milk until hot.

  2. Stir in ⅓ cup of white corn meal and cook until thickened and bubbling.

  3. Remove from heat and add 1 tablespoon of butter and ½ teaspoon of salt.

  4. Mix in the yolks of 3 or 4 eggs until well combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Gently fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  2. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 25 to 30 minutes.

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

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

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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 lift and set the mixture so it puffs and bakes light.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and help bind it, adding richness and a tender set.
White corn meal
Thickens the hot milk into a starchy base that gives the souffle its body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the corn meal thickens and the eggs enrich.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites hold air only while whipped, so folding gently keeps the bubbles intact. Overmixing deflates the batter, and the souffle will bake flat and dense instead of rising.

“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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