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Cheese Souffle, or Fondu

A baked cheese soufflé made with Parmesan, flour, mustard, spices, butter, milk, and beaten eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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, or Fondu

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. Grate the cheese and place it in an enamelled saucepan.

  2. Add flour, mustard, white pepper, cayenne, grated nutmeg, butter, baked flour, and milk.

  3. Stir over low heat until smooth and thick, but do not let it boil.

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

  5. Beat the mixture for 10 minutes.

Bake and serve

  1. Fold in the beaten egg whites until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a tin or cardboard mold.

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

  4. 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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mustard + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich the base and whites, beaten and folded in, give the soufflé its airy structure.
Cheese
Provides rich savoury flavour and body to the base.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the base taste smooth and full.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture so it holds its shape around the air.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into a smooth sauce.

The step that matters

Do not let the base boil. Once the flour-thickened base is smooth, boiling can scramble the egg yolks stirred in afterward and cause curdling. Gentle heat keeps the base silky so it can later hold the folded egg whites.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, flour, mustard, pepper, nutmeg, butter, milk):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, flour, mustard, pepper, nutmeg, butter, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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