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Cheese Souffle

A baked cheese souffle made with butter, flour, milk, eggs, cheese, and paprika.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  3. Stir in the flour, salt, and paprika, cooking for a few minutes.

  4. Gradually add the milk, stirring until smooth and thickened.

  5. Remove from heat and mix in the egg yolks and grated cheese.

Fold and bake

  1. In a separate bowl, beat 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.

  4. Bake for 25-30 minutes until puffed and golden.

  5. 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. Milk + cheesetop 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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air that lifts the souffle as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and add richness and structure as they set with heat.
Flour
Thickens the melted butter and milk into a stable base that holds the air.
Grated cheese
Adds rich savory flavor and fat, and helps the base set as it cooks.
Milk
Forms the liquid that the flour thickens into a smooth white sauce base.
Butter
Fat that cooks with the flour to form the roux that starts the base.

The step that matters

Folding the egg whites into the cheese mixture. Folding gently keeps the air trapped in the whipped whites. Stirring or deflating them makes the souffle rise poorly and turn dense.

“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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