Skip to main content
Main

Cheese Souffle

A light, baked cheese soufflé made with butter, flour, milk, cheese, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Cheese Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Mix in the flour, salt, and cayenne pepper until smooth.

  3. Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly, and simmer until thickened.

  4. Stir in the grated cheese until melted.

  5. Remove from heat and mix in the beaten egg yolks.

Fold and bake

  1. Whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Gently fold the whisked egg whites into the mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into a small round tin, filling it halfway.

  4. Pin a napkin around the dish.

  5. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

  6. Serve immediately after baking.

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 + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + parmesan cheesetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

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

  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

Eggs
Egg whites whisked to stiff peaks trap air, which lifts the soufflé as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Yolks enrich the base and help set the custard structure as it cooks.
Butter
Butter with flour forms a roux that thickens the milk into a smooth base.
Flour
Flour thickens the melted butter and milk, giving the base body to hold the air.
Milk
Milk forms the liquid base that the roux thickens into a smooth sauce.
Parmesan cheese
Grated cheese adds rich savoury flavour and fat to the thickened base.

The step that matters

Folding the egg whites into the base. Folding gently keeps the air in the whisked whites. Stirring or deflating them makes the soufflé rise less and turn dense.

“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.

More cheese soufflé recipes

Cold 4 See all 198 →

You might also like

Macaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesCheese MakingCheese Making50 recipesCheese FrittersCheese Fritters34 recipesCheese OmeletteCheese Omelette31 recipes