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Dessert

A Souffle of Ginger

A soufflé flavored with preserved ginger, lemon, cinnamon, and brandy, baked in a water bath and served with white wine sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

A Souffle of Ginger

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Boil the milk and cream with lemon peel, cinnamon, and sugar for 30 minutes.

  2. Let the mixture cool.

  3. Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat.

  4. Add enough flour to absorb the butter, stirring until it pulls away from the pan.

  5. Remove the mixture from heat.

Make the soufflé mixture

  1. Stir in the eggs one at a time until well combined.

  2. Mix in the cooled milk and cream mixture thoroughly to prevent separation.

  3. Add the preserved ginger, brandy, and nutmeg, and mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Grease a cake mold generously with butter using a pastry brush.

  2. Decorate the mold with dried cherries as desired.

  3. Place the mold in a saucepan of boiling water, covering it halfway.

  4. Cover the saucepan and add hot charcoal on top of the cover.

  5. Simmer for about 1 hour.

  6. Remove the mold 10 minutes before serving to help it firm up.

  7. Run a knife around the edges to loosen before inverting onto a plate.

  8. Serve with white wine 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. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the structure of the soufflé as they cook, giving it lift and a firm, sliceable body.
Butter
Combined with flour to form a roux that thickens the base and adds richness.
Flour
Absorbs the butter to form a roux, which thickens the custard base and helps it hold its shape.
Milk and cream
Form the liquid base, adding moisture and a soft, tender texture.
Preserved ginger
Adds the main flavor and a little moisture and chew to the soufflé.

The step that matters

Mix the cooled milk and cream into the base thoroughly. If the warm dairy is added too early or mixed poorly, the eggs can scramble or the mixture can separate, leaving a grainy, uneven texture instead of a smooth, set soufflé.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, cream, cinnamon, sugar, butter, flour, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, cinnamon, sugar, butter, flour, egg. 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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