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Souffle Bread

A light, fluffy bread made by folding beaten egg whites into a batter and baking.

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 ↓

Souffle Bread

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 batter

  1. Separate the egg yolks from the whites.

  2. Mix the yolks with the flour, melted butter, and enough milk to make a thick batter.

  3. Add the sugar and salt, then fold in the beaten egg whites.

  4. Mix the baking powder with the additional flour and add to the batter.

Cook and bake

  1. Heat a frying pan and add the tablespoon of butter.

  2. Pour in the batter, cover the pan, and place it on the back of the stove.

  3. Once the bread has risen lightly, transfer it to a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) without the cover.

  4. Bake for about 15 minutes until browned.

  5. Carefully turn it out of the pan and serve hot.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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 beaten and folded in provide air and lift, giving the bread a light, soufflé-like crumb.
Flour
Provides the starch structure that holds the batter together and sets as the bread bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the bottom brown in the frying pan.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the bread rise.
Milk
Adds moisture and turns the flour and yolks into a thick, pourable batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when beaten to stable peaks and folded gently. Overmixing knocks the air out, so the bread rises less and turns 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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