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Dessert

Cream Souffle

A light, airy dessert made with egg yolks, flour, liqueur, cream, and folded egg whites, baked until puffed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cream 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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks, flour, and liqueur.

  2. Add the cream to the mixture and stir well.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gently fold them into the cream mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a souffle dish and bake until puffed and golden.

  2. Serve immediately while hot.

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. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  3. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 to stiff peaks, they trap air and make the soufflé rise and stay light.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the mixture, giving structure as it sets.
Flour
Thickens the base so it holds the whipped whites without collapsing.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture, giving a rich, tender texture.
Maraschino or any liqueur
Adds aroma and a subtle sweet flavour to the custard base.

The step that matters

Folding the egg whites. Whites must be beaten to stiff peaks and folded in gently. Stirring or deflating them knocks out the trapped air, so the soufflé will not rise properly in the oven.

“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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