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Dessert

Coffee Souffle

A light, airy dessert made with beaten eggs, sugar, and strong coffee, baked briefly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and coffee are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,344 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Coffee Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the base

  1. Separate the egg yolks and whites into two bowls.

  2. Add the sugar to the yolks and beat for 20 minutes.

  3. Stir in the coffee.

Fold and bake

  1. Whip the egg whites until very stiff.

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

  3. Pour the mixture into a souffle dish.

  4. Bake in a very hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 5 minutes.

  5. 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. Sugar + coffeetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

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

  2. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + coffeetop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,239 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped whites trap air and give the souffle its light, risen structure, while yolks add richness.
White sugar
Sweetens the custard base and helps stabilise the beaten yolk mixture.
Strong coffee
Adds the coffee flavour and a small amount of liquid to the yolk base.

The step that matters

Folding the egg whites into the yolk mixture. Folding gently keeps the air bubbles in the whipped whites intact. Stirring or deflating them loses the lift that lets the souffle rise 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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