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Dessert

Egg Souffle

A baked egg soufflé with a sweet sauce made from egg, sugar, vinegar, flour, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Egg 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.

Make the base

  1. Combine scalded milk, flour, and sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Thicken the mixture over low heat.

  3. Cool the mixture.

Make the soufflé

  1. Beat the egg whites and yolks separately.

  2. Fold the beaten whites and yolks into the cooled mixture with a pinch of salt.

  3. Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.

  4. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 25 minutes.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. For the sauce, mix 1 egg, 1 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons vinegar, a little flour, and nutmeg in a bowl.

  2. Serve with the soufflé.

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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Milk + flourtop 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. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Whites trap air for lift, and yolks add richness and structure to the soufflé.
Milk
Forms the thickened base that the beaten eggs are folded into, adding moisture and body.
Flour
Thickens the scalded milk into a base that holds the folded eggs in place.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the soufflé base and helps stabilise the sauce.

The step that matters

Fold the beaten whites and yolks into the cooled mixture. Folding gently keeps the air in the beaten egg whites. Stirring hard or letting the base stay warm can deflate the foam, so the soufflé rises less.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, sugar, egg, sauce, vinegar):

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Jalapenofits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, sugar, egg, sauce, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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