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Nut Souffle

A baked dish of bread crumbs, milk, nuts, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Nut Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the base

  1. Cook the bread crumbs and milk in a saucepan over medium heat until smooth.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in the salt, pepper, and chopped nuts.

Bake and serve

  1. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  2. Pour the mixture into a well-greased baking dish.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 15 minutes until puffy and firm.

  4. 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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  4. Milk + nutstop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together982 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Bread + nutstop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together174 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped air is folded in, giving the souffle its light, puffy rise when baked.
Bread crumbs
Soak up the hot milk and form a thick base that gives the souffle body and structure.
Milk
Moistens the bread crumbs and forms a smooth base that adds moisture to the finished dish.
Nuts
Add flavour, richness and a fine texture to the base.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stirring instead of gently folding knocks out the air trapped in the beaten whites, so the souffle bakes flat and dense rather than rising light and puffy.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, pepper, egg):

  1. Peasfits better
  2. Cocoafits better
  3. Walnutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, pepper, 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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