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Dessert

Vanilla Souffle

A light, airy custard-based dessert made with flour, milk, sugar, vanilla, egg yolks, and beaten egg whites, baked until puffed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Vanilla 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. Mix the flour with 2 to 3 tablespoons of cold milk to form a smooth paste.

  2. Add enough milk to make a total of ¾ pint.

  3. Stir in the sugar, salt, and vanilla essence.

  4. Heat the mixture over medium heat until it thickens and leaves the sides of the pan.

  5. Strain the mixture into a bowl.

  6. Let the strained mixture cool.

  7. Stir in the beaten egg yolks.

Whip and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until firm peaks form.

  2. Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the batter.

  3. Grease a dish with butter.

  4. Pour the mixture into the greased dish until half full.

  5. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes.

  6. Turn the soufflé occasionally for even baking.

  7. Sift powdered sugar on top.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

All-purpose flour
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth base that holds the soufflé's structure.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and add richness and structure as they set with heat.
Egg whites
Whipped into peaks, they trap air that makes the soufflé rise and become light.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into a custard-like mixture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites.

The step that matters

Folding the beaten egg whites into the batter. Folding gently keeps the air trapped in the whipped whites. Stirring or deflating the batter removes that air, so the soufflé rises less and turns dense.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, sugar, egg, butter. 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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