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Dessert

Chocolate Souffle

A light chocolate dessert made by folding beaten egg whites into a chocolate mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Chocolate Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a small saucepan.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute without browning.

  3. Slowly add the milk, stirring until smooth and slightly thickened.

  4. Remove from heat and mix into the beaten yolks and sugar.

  5. Add the melted chocolate and stir for a few minutes, then let cool.

  6. Rub a little butter over the top to prevent a crust from forming.

Fold and fill the tin

  1. When ready to serve, stir the mixture to smooth it out.

  2. Gently fold in the whipped egg whites until combined.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered tin, filling it two-thirds full.

  4. Line the tin with greased paper that rises above the sides.

Steam and serve

  1. Place the tin in a deep saucepan with enough hot water to cover half the tin.

  2. Cover the saucepan and simmer for 30 minutes without lifting the lid.

  3. Serve immediately on a hot dish, covering with a hot tin if needed.

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. Milk + buttertop 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. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Chocolate + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Chocolate
Provides the main flavour and rich body to the soufflé base.
Egg whites
Whipped to trap air, lifting the soufflé as it cooks.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and help thicken it as it sets.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture, giving the base enough structure to hold the air.
Milk
Adds moisture and, with the flour, forms the thickened base.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and coats the tin and surface to prevent sticking and crusting.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the whipped egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air trapped in the egg whites. Stirring hard knocks out that air, so the soufflé will rise less.

“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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