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Dessert

Grape Souffle

A baked dessert of grapes, milk, eggs, flour, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Grape Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Pick over and wash the grapes, then dredge them with flour.

  2. Beat the egg yolks and whites separately until light.

Make the batter

  1. Mix the yolks with the milk and sifted flour, then add the creamed butter.

  2. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  3. Stir in the grapes and immediately pour into a buttered baking dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) or pour into a pudding cloth and boil for 3 hours.

  2. Serve with wine or grape juice 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Grape + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,682 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Grape + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,028 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

Eggs
Whipped whites give the soufflé its airy lift, while the yolks enrich the batter.
Flour
Provides structure so the batter holds its shape around the grapes.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the batter.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the batter.
Grapes
Supply sweetness, juice and fruity flavor throughout the soufflé.

The step that matters

Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Whites hold air only when beaten stiff and folded gently; overmixing knocks out the air, so the soufflé bakes flat and dense instead of light and risen.

Swap the grape

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

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

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