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Dessert

Cheese Souffle

A baked cheese soufflé made with milk, butter, flour, eggs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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

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 base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the flour until smooth.

  3. Pour in the milk and stir until it boils.

  4. Add the cheese, salt, cayenne, and beaten egg yolks; mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  2. Pour the mixture into a round tin, filling it halfway.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

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

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

  2. Cheese + buttertop 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. Milk + flourtop 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
Whites trapped in the base expand in the oven, lifting the soufflé and giving it its airy structure.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth sauce that holds the cheese and gives the base body.
Cheese
Adds rich flavor and fat to the base, with its proteins helping set the structure as it bakes.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that carries the flour, cheese, and eggs.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and combines with the flour to form the thickening base.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites gently. Egg whites hold the air that makes a soufflé rise. Stirring vigorously knocks that air out, so the soufflé bakes flat and dense instead of light.

“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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