Skip to main content
Dessert

Cheese Soufflé

A baked cheese soufflé made with flour, milk, grated cheese, egg yolks, and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,426 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Soufflé

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the base

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a saucepan, melt the flour in the milk over low heat, stirring until thickened.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the grated cheese until melted.

  4. Beat in the egg yolks one at a time.

Add the whites and bake

  1. In a separate bowl, whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Gently fold the egg whites into the cheese mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish and bake for 25-30 minutes until puffed and golden.

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 + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Cheese + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,253 recipes

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

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air and make the soufflé rise and become light.
Egg yolks
Add richness and emulsify into the base, helping it set smoothly.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a stable white sauce that holds the soufflé's structure.
Grated cheese
Adds the main flavour and fat, and melts into the base for richness.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into a sauce.

The step that matters

Folding the egg whites into the cheese mixture. Folding gently keeps the air in the whipped whites. Stirring or deflating them makes the soufflé dense and stops it from rising well.

“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.

More cheese soufflé recipes

Cold 4 See all 198 →

You might also like

Cheese BallsCheese Balls97 recipesCheese CakeCheese Cake55 recipesCream CheeseCream Cheese46 recipesLemon PieLemon Pie37 recipes