Skip to main content
Dessert

Choux Souffles

A puff choux made with butter, cream, nut flour, eggs, sugar, and grated orange and lemon peel, coated in coarse sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Choux Souffles

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. Melt 2 ounces of butter and ⅔ cup of cream in a saucepan until boiling.

  2. Stir in 1 tablespoon of nut flour to thicken the mixture.

  3. In a separate bowl, mix the thickened mixture with 2 eggs and ¼ teaspoon of salt.

  4. Add 2 egg yolks, 3 ounces of sugar, and grated lemon and orange peels to the mixture.

  5. Whisk the mixture until stiff, then fold in whipped cream.

Shape and coat

  1. Spoon the mixture into small or square cases, filling them halfway.

  2. Turn the cases upside down onto a heap of coarse sugar to coat the choux.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) and serve hot.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Butter
Adds richness and a tender texture to the base.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, and is whipped to lighten the mixture.
Nut flour
Thickens the hot liquid so it can hold its shape.
Eggs
Add structure and set during baking, and help trap air for lift.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the coating crisp on the outside.
Lemon and orange peel
Add citrus aroma and brightness to the mixture.

The step that matters

Fold in the whipped cream gently. Air trapped in the whisked eggs and whipped cream causes the puffs to rise in the oven. Vigorous stirring deflates the foam, so the puffs bake flatter and denser.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, cream, flour, egg, sugar, lemon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Raspberryfits about as well
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, flour, egg, sugar, lemon. 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.

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipes