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Cheese Souffle

A light, baked cheese dish made with a roux, milk, cheese, eggs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 400°F (200°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 stir until smooth and frothy, without browning.

  3. Gradually stir in the milk and bring to a boil.

  4. Stir in the grated cheese, salt, and red pepper.

  5. Beat the egg yolks with the water and mix into the cheese mixture.

  6. Set aside to cool.

Bake and serve

  1. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks and fold into the cooled mixture.

  2. Pour into a buttered basin and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 to 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. 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

Butter
Enriches the base and adds richness and flavour to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth white sauce that holds the soufflé together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that carries the other ingredients.
Grated cheese
Adds savoury flavour and fat to the base.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and help set the soufflé as it bakes.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air that makes the soufflé rise and become light.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. Whipped egg whites hold the air that lifts the soufflé. Stirring or deflating them during folding, or folding into a warm base, causes the mixture to lose volume and rise poorly.

“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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