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Dessert

Chocolate Souffle

A steamed chocolate dessert made with chocolate, flour, sugar, butter, milk, eggs, vanilla, and served with custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Chocolate Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a small saucepan, simmer the milk and chocolate gently until dissolved.

  2. Melt the butter, stir in the flour, then add the chocolate mixture and boil well.

  3. Let it cool slightly, then add the vanilla, sugar, and egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Bake and serve

  1. Gently fold in the stiffly whisked egg whites.

  2. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered mold and steam gently for 45 to 50 minutes.

  3. Serve with custard or sweet sauce around the dish.

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. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

Egg whites
Whisked stiffly and folded in, they trap air and give the soufflé its light, risen structure.
Egg yolks
Add richness and emulsify the base, helping it set smoothly and hold its texture.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk base so it can hold the rising air bubbles.
Chocolate
Provides the main flavour and, melted into the milk, colours and sweetens the base.
Butter
Enriches the base with fat, adding flavour and a softer, tender texture.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the stiffly whisked egg whites.. Stirring rather than folding knocks out the air trapped in the whites, so the soufflé will not rise properly and will 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.

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