Skip to main content
Dessert

Custard Souffle

A sweet custard souffle made with sugar, flour, milk, eggs, vanilla, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Custard Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard base

  1. Mix the sugar and flour with a little cold milk.

  2. Stir the mixture into the boiling milk and cook for 10 minutes, stirring until smooth.

  3. Add the butter and mix well.

  4. Stir in the beaten egg yolks.

Fold and bake

  1. Remove from heat and gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  2. Pour the mixture into a pudding dish or small molds.

  3. Place the dish in a pan of hot water.

  4. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes, or 20 minutes for small molds.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately with whipped cream or a light sauce.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Yolks thicken the custard and whites are folded in to give the soufflé its airy lift.
Flour
Starch thickens the hot milk into a stable base that holds the risen structure.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens and the eggs enrich.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and adds to its tender texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, softer crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites hold air only while whipped, so folding gently keeps the bubbles in. Overmixing deflates them and the soufflé rises poorly and turns dense.

Swap the vanilla

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, milk, egg, butter):

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, milk, 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.

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes