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Dessert

Cheese Souffle

A baked cheese soufflé made with butter, flour, milk, salt, paprika, egg yolks, grated cheese, and stiff‑egg whites.

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. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the flour until smooth.

  3. Add the milk, salt, and paprika; cook for 2 minutes.

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

  5. Let the mixture cool.

Bake and serve

  1. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered dish.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 25 minutes.

  4. Serve immediately with currant jelly.

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 into stiff peaks, they trap air and make the souffle rise and turn light.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and help set the structure as the souffle bakes.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth base that holds the rising air bubbles.
Grated cheese
Adds rich savory flavor and fat to the base.
Milk
Forms the liquid body of the cheese sauce base, giving it moisture.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.. Whites hold air only when whipped to stiff peaks. Folding gently keeps that trapped air, so the souffle can rise in the oven instead of deflating.

“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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