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Dessert

French Souffle

A light, airy custard-like dish made from butter, flour, milk, cream, egg yolks, sugar, and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

French Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the base

  1. In a clean saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the flour until thick, but do not let it brown.

  3. Gradually add the boiling milk and cream, stirring until smooth and thick.

  4. Remove from heat and flavor with maraschino or noéau to taste.

Add the eggs and bake

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with the powdered sugar.

  2. Fold the yolk mixture into the milk mixture.

  3. Whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form and gently fold them in.

  4. Pour the mixture into a souffle dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for about one hour.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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 peaks, they trap air that makes the soufflé rise and turn light.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and help set the soufflé as they cook, adding richness and structure.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a stable base that holds the whipped structure.
Milk
Forms the liquid body of the base that the flour thickens.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the yolks and dissolves easily into them for a smooth mixture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites are whipped to stiff peaks to trap air. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring or deflating the mixture stops the soufflé from rising well.

“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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