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Dessert

Lemon Souffle

A chilled lemon-flavored dessert made with eggs, gelatine, whipped cream, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Lemon Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. In a saucepan, combine the yolks of the eggs and lemon juice with a little lemon peel and heat until boiling.

  2. Once cool, add the whipped cream and softened gelatine to the mixture.

Fold and set

  1. Whip the egg whites until stiff and gently fold them into the mixture.

  2. Pour the mixture into a mold and refrigerate until set.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
Yolks thicken the base and whipped whites give the souffle its airy lift.
Gelatine
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when unmoulded.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and a light, moist texture.
Lemons
Provide the sharp acidity and fresh aroma that define the flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the tartness of the lemon.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites are whipped to a foam of trapped air bubbles. Stirring vigorously or over-folding knocks out that air, leaving a dense, flat souffle instead of a light one.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cream, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Strawberryfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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