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Cheese Souffle

A baked cheese soufflé made with butter, flour, milk, eggs, cheese, salt, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

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 base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the flour and blend thoroughly.

  3. Gradually add the scalded milk, stirring constantly until smooth and thickened.

  4. Add the salt, cayenne pepper, and cheese; remove from heat.

  5. Stir in the beaten egg yolks.

Bake and serve

  1. Cool the mixture, then fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  2. Pour into a buttered baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

  3. 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. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Whipped whites and yolks provide the lift and airy structure that makes the soufflé rise.
Cheese
Adds rich flavor and fat, and its proteins help set the custard as it bakes.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a stable white sauce that holds the air bubbles.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the white sauce, giving it body and moisture.
Butter
Fat that enriches the base and helps form a smooth roux with the flour.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites. Whites must be stiffly beaten and folded gently so the air bubbles are not lost. Deflated batter bakes flat and dense instead of rising.

“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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