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Dessert

Apple Souffle

A baked soufflé made from sieved cooked apples thickened with cornstarch and flour and lightened with beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Apple Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the apple pulp

  1. Pass the cooked apples through a sieve.

Make the base

  1. Sift together cornstarch and flour dissolved in cold water.

  2. Melt butter with salt, then add boiling water and the flour-cornstarch mixture.

  3. Sweeten the hot apple pulp to taste and add lemon juice, stirring thoroughly.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten egg yolks and the beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a shallow baking dish.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until puffed and brown.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff froth, they lift and puff the soufflé as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and help set the custard-like structure as it cooks.
Cornstarch
Thickens the hot apple pulp into a stable base that holds the foam.
Apples
Provide the main body, flavor and moisture of the soufflé.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stir the yolks in gently and fold the whites in just until combined, because overmixing knocks out the air bubbles that make the soufflé rise.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, lemon, egg. 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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