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Dessert

Custard Souffle

A baked custard soufflé made with butter, flour, sugar, milk, egg yolks, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Custard Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the flour and gradually pour in the scalded milk while stirring constantly.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks until thick and lemon colored, then mix in the sugar.

  5. Pour the hot mixture into the egg yolks and mix well.

  6. Cool the mixture slightly.

Bake and serve

  1. Fold in the beaten egg whites until just combined.

  2. Pour into a buttered baking dish.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 to 35 minutes.

  4. Serve immediately with Foamy Sauce.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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
Beaten and folded in, they trap air and make the soufflé rise and turn light.
Egg yolks
Enriching the base, they add richness and help set the custard structure.
Flour
Cooked with the butter and milk, it thickens the base so it can hold the air from the whites.
Scalded milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, adding moisture and a soft, creamy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and adds body to the beaten yolks.
Butter
Enriches the base with fat and adds flavor.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites until just combined. Over-mixing knocks air out of the whites, so the soufflé will rise less and bake up denser. Stop folding as soon as no white streaks remain.

“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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