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Dessert

Chocolate Souffle

A light, baked dessert made with eggs, sugar, flour, and chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,404 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Chocolate Souffle

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.

Prepare the base

  1. Separate the egg whites from the yolks into different bowls.

  2. Add sugar, flour, and finely grated chocolate to the yolks and stir for 5 minutes.

Make the batter

  1. Whisk the egg whites in the other bowl until stiff.

  2. Gently fold the egg whites into the yolk mixture until smooth.

  3. Butter a round cake tin and pour in the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 15 to 20 minutes.

  2. Wrap a white napkin around the tin, sprinkle sifted sugar on top, and 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. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + chocolatetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,994 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
Whipped whites trap air, which lifts the souffle as it bakes and gives it a light structure.
Egg yolks
Yolks add richness and fat, and help bind the chocolate into a smooth base.
Best chocolate
Melted chocolate adds deep flavour and fat, and gives the souffle its dense, rich body.
Pounded sugar
Sugar sweetens the batter and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites.
Flour
A small amount of flour gives the base some structure so the souffle holds its shape.

The step that matters

Folding the egg whites into the yolk mixture. Whites hold air only while whisked. Folding gently keeps that air in the batter, so the souffle rises in the oven instead of collapsing.

“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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