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Dessert

Cheese Souffle

A light, baked cheese dish made with egg yolks, egg whites, bread crumbs, cheese, milk, butter, salt, cayenne pepper, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. 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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the soufflé

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks until very light.

  2. Add the bread crumbs, milk, cheese, salt, cayenne pepper, and baking soda to the yolks.

  3. Gently fold in the egg whites until just combined.

  4. Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish and bake until golden brown.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whites trapped by folding give the soufflé its light, airy structure as it bakes.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and add body, giving the mixture a soft, tender texture.
Cheese
Adds rich flavour and fat, and helps the top brown as it bakes.
Sweet milk
Provides moisture that turns the crumbs and yolks into a smooth base.
Baking soda
Reacts with the mixture to help it rise and lighten the texture.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the egg whites. Beaten egg whites hold air that makes the soufflé rise. Stirring or deflating them vigorously knocks out this air, so the result bakes up flat and 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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