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Dessert

Cheese Souffle

A baked cheese soufflé made with butter, flour, milk, cheese, eggs, salt, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the base

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the flour and stir until smooth.

  3. Pour in the milk and add salt and cayenne; cook for 2 minutes.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten egg yolks and cheese; let cool.

  5. Once cool, fold in the beaten egg whites until combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered dish and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 to 25 minutes.

  2. Serve immediately after baking.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 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 trap air and set into the risen structure, while yolks add richness and body.
Flour
Thickens the melted butter and milk into a stable base that holds the air.
Butter
Forms the roux with flour and adds richness to the base.
Milk
Liquid that cooks with the flour into a smooth, thick sauce base.
Cheese
Adds savory flavor and fat to the base.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites. Egg whites must be beaten to hold air and folded in gently so the mixture keeps its volume. Overmixing deflates the air, so the soufflé rises less 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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