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 ↓
Apple Souffle
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.
Make the rice base
Boil the milk with the lemon rind until well flavored.
Strain the milk, then add the rice.
Cook over low heat until the rice swells, adding sugar to sweeten.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks and mix with the rice mixture.
Bake and serve
Whip the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture.
Pour into a buttered dish and top with apple marmalade.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set and lightly browned.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + appletop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,104 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,366 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Rice + appletop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,311 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rice
- Swells during cooking to form the thick, creamy body of the soufflé.
- Egg yolks
- Enrich the base and help set it into a custard-like texture when baked.
- Egg whites
- Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air and lift the soufflé as it bakes.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid that the rice swells in, giving a soft, creamy texture.
- Apple marmalade
- Adds fruity sweetness and flavor on top of the soufflé.
The step that matters
Fold the whipped egg whites into the mixture. Folding gently keeps the air in the stiff egg whites. Stirring or deflating them removes that trapped air, so the soufflé rises less and turns dense.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, lemon, sugar, egg, butter):
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutfits better
- Figfits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, lemon, sugar, egg, butter. 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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