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Dessert

Chocolate Souffle

A chocolate souffle made with cake crumbs, milk, butter, chocolate, eggs, sugar, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Chocolate Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Heat the butter and milk together in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the grated chocolate and cake crumbs until the mixture thickens and pulls away from the sides of the pan.

  3. Cool the mixture, then add the sugar, vanilla, and egg yolks.

Fold and steam

  1. Gently fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  2. Pour the mixture into a prepared souffle dish and steam gently for about 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Turn out the souffle and drizzle with chocolate sauce.

  2. Decorate with chopped pistachio nuts.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 a stiff foam, they trap air and give the soufflé its light, risen structure.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help set the base as it cooks, giving a tender texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the base.
Grated chocolate
Provides the main flavour and, melted into the base, helps it thicken.
Cake crumbs
Thicken the base and add body to the mixture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the chocolate and crumbs thicken into a smooth mixture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Egg whites hold air only while whipped. Folding gently keeps that air in the mixture, so the soufflé rises instead of deflating.

“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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