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Dessert

Cold Cheese Souffle

A chilled cheese mixture of Swiss and Parmesan, heavy cream, aspic jelly, and seasonings, set in baskets and served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Swiss cheese and parmesan cheese match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 151 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Cold Cheese Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grate the Swiss and Parmesan cheeses.

  2. Whip the heavy cream and aspic jelly together until frothy.

  3. Stir in the grated cheeses and season with salt, cayenne, and mustard.

Shape and chill

  1. Fill small baskets with the mixture and grate additional cheese on top.

  2. Chill in ice until firm.

Serve

  1. Optionally, freeze the mixture like ice cream, cut into cubes, and serve on fried bread canapés.

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. Swiss cheese + parmesan cheesetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together151 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Swiss cheese + mustardtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together175 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Parmesan cheese + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Swiss cheese + creamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together174 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Heavy cream
Whipped to trap air, giving the soufflé a light, airy texture.
Aspic jelly
Sets as it cools, helping the mixture hold its shape when chilled.
Swiss cheese
Melts into the mixture, adding rich flavour and body.
Parmesan cheese
Adds a sharp, savoury flavour that stands out against the milder Swiss.

The step that matters

Whipping the cream and aspic until frothy. Air bubbles trapped in the cream give the soufflé its lightness. Under-whipping leaves it dense, while over-whipping can make it grainy and collapse as it sets.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (swiss cheese, parmesan cheese, cream, pepper):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against swiss cheese, parmesan cheese, cream, pepper. 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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