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Dessert

Souffle Au Mum

A rum soufflé made with egg yolks, sugar, potato flour, and egg whites, baked and flambéed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and rum are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,908 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Souffle Au Mum

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the mixture

  1. Beat the egg yolks with sugar until thick and whitish.

  2. Stir in the rum and potato flour.

  3. Whisk the egg whites until stiff and gently fold them into the mixture.

  4. Shape the mixture into a pyramid on a serving dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for 15 minutes.

  2. Before serving, pour a little rum around the soufflé, ignite it, and 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. Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 yolks
Add richness and fat, and help emulsify the mixture for a smooth base.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air that lifts the soufflé as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and helps the beaten yolks become thick and stable.
Potato flour
Thickens the mixture and gives the baked soufflé a light, tender structure.
Rum
Adds aroma and flavor, and the extra rum poured on top is ignited for effect.

The step that matters

Fold the egg whites gently. Stiff whites hold trapped air that makes the soufflé rise. Overmixing or deflating them during folding releases that air, so the soufflé bakes flat and dense.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, rum, flour. 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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