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Dessert

Custard Souffle

A baked custard made with milk, sugar, flour, butter, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Custard Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard base

  1. In a saucepan, bring the milk to a boil.

  2. In a bowl, beat together the flour and butter.

  3. Gradually add the boiling milk to the flour and butter mixture, cooking for 8 minutes while stirring often.

  4. In another bowl, beat the sugar and egg yolks together.

  5. Add the cooled cooked mixture to the egg yolk mixture and set aside to cool.

Bake and serve

  1. Once cool, fold in the beaten egg whites.

  2. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 20 minutes.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 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
Egg whites trap air for the soufflé's rise, while yolks thicken and enrich the custard.
Flour
Starch thickens the milk into a stable base that holds the soufflé together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, giving moisture and a soft texture.
Butter
Fat that smooths the flour mixture and adds richness to the custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps stabilise the beaten yolks.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites hold air only if they are beaten to stiff peaks and folded gently. Overmixing deflates the batter, and a base that is still warm can melt the foam, so the mixture should be cool before folding.

“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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