Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Potato Soufflee
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
Boil the cream in a saucepan.
Mix potato flour with the yolks of 4 eggs, then add butter, powdered sugar, and lemon peel.
Pour the hot cream over the mixture and stir continuously until it just comes to a boil.
Let the mixture cool, then mix in 6 additional egg yolks.
Fold and bake
Beat the 6 egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gently fold them into the mixture.
Transfer to a dish and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until risen.
Serve
Serve in the same dish; you can flavor it with chocolate if desired.
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.
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Potato + lemontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,230 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,456 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour and butter 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
- Egg whites
- Whipped into peaks, they trap air that lifts the soufflé as it bakes.
- Egg yolks
- Add richness and, when heated, help thicken the base for a custard-like structure.
- Potato flour
- Thickens the base and gives the soufflé a tender, stable structure.
- Cream
- Adds moisture and richness, keeping the baked soufflé soft and smooth.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture.
The step that matters
Folding in the egg whites. Stiff whites hold the air that makes the soufflé rise. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring or deflating the whites produces a dense, flat result.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, flour, egg, butter, sugar, lemon):
- Arrowrootfits better
- Leekfits better
- Shallotfits better
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cream, flour, egg, butter, sugar, lemon. 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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