Skip to main content
Dessert

Cheese Souffle

A baked cheese souffle made with milk, butter, flour, eggs, Parmesan, whipped cream, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Cheese Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the base

  1. In a saucepan, combine boiling milk and butter over heat.

  2. Add sifted flour and stir until it forms a paste that pulls away from the bottom.

  3. Transfer the paste to a bowl and let it cool slightly.

Mix and bake

  1. Gradually mix in egg yolks, Parmesan cheese, whipped cream, and melted butter.

  2. Fold in beaten egg whites gently.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered souffle dish.

  4. Place the dish in a pan of hot water, ensuring water reaches halfway up the dish.

  5. Bake for about 25 minutes at 400°F (200°C) until set.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Eggs
Egg whites trapped in the batter expand with heat and give the soufflé its lift; yolks enrich and set it.
Flour
Cooked into a paste with the milk and butter, it thickens the base and gives the soufflé structure.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory, salty flavor and firms slightly as the soufflé sets.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the panada, adding moisture and softness to the interior.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing flavor and a tender texture to the base.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites are beaten to hold air; folding gently keeps that air in the batter. Stirring or deflating it causes the soufflé to rise less and 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.

More cheese soufflé recipes

Cold 4 See all 198 →

You might also like

Cheese BallsCheese Balls97 recipesCheese CakeCheese Cake55 recipesCream CheeseCream Cheese46 recipesLemon PieLemon Pie37 recipes