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Dessert

Cheese Souffles

A baked cheese soufflé made with butter, flour, milk, eggs, Parmesan, 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 Souffles

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.

Prepare the base

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter and mix in the flour.

  3. Add the milk and season with pepper, salt, and cayenne.

  4. Beat in the egg yolks and mix in the cheese.

Fold and bake

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Gently fold the egg whites into the cheese mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered tin or paper cases.

  4. Bake for 15 minutes until firm.

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 + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Parmesan cheese + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  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 to stiff peaks, they trap air that lifts the soufflé as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and help it set into a creamy, tender structure when baked.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a stable white sauce that holds the air bubbles.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory, salty flavor and some body to the base.
Milk
Forms the liquid base with the flour and butter, giving a smooth, pourable sauce.

The step that matters

Gently fold the egg whites into the cheese mixture. Stirring or deflating the whipped whites releases the trapped air that makes the soufflé rise. Folding with a light hand keeps the bubbles intact so the soufflé puffs in the oven.

“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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