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Dessert

Fruit Souffle

A baked apricot soufflé made with apricots, sugar, flour, cream, butter, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fruit 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 fruit base

  1. Combine apricots, water, and sugar in a preserving pan.

  2. Simmer gently until the apricots can be pulped.

  3. Pass the pulped apricots through a fine sieve.

  4. Mix flour and cream, then add to the pulped apricots along with butter.

  5. Stir over heat until boiling.

  6. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten egg yolks.

Bake and serve

  1. Prepare a soufflé dish with a paper band to allow for rising.

  2. Fold in the whisked egg whites.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 45 minutes, turning the dish occasionally.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Apricot + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,458 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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
Whisked to a firm froth, they trap air and lift the soufflé as it rises.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and help set the soufflé as it cooks.
Flour
Thickens the apricot mixture so it holds the rising structure.
Apricots
Provide the main fruit flavour and pulped body of the soufflé.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the base.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the texture of the base.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites whisked to a firm froth hold the air that makes the soufflé rise. Folding gently, rather than stirring, keeps that air in, so the soufflé rises well in the oven.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Apricotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, cream, butter, 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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