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Cheese Souffle

A light, baked cheese soufflé made with butter, flour, milk, eggs, cheese, cayenne pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°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 stir until smooth.

  3. Add the milk and seasonings, then cook for two minutes.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten egg yolks and cheese.

  5. Let the mixture cool slightly.

Bake and serve

  1. Gently fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  2. Pour into a buttered dish and bake at 400°F (200°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. 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 trapped in the batter expand in the oven and lift the soufflé; yolks enrich the base.
Flour
Cooked with butter into a roux that thickens the milk into a stable base.
Cheese
Adds rich savoury flavour and fat to the base.
Milk
Liquid that the flour thickens into a smooth sauce for the base.
Butter
Fat that forms the roux with the flour and adds richness.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. Stiffly beaten whites hold the air that makes the soufflé rise. Vigorous stirring knocks that air out, so the soufflé bakes flat and 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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