Skip to main content
Dessert

Chocolate Souffle

A chocolate soufflé made with butter, milk, sugar, eggs, raisins, almonds, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

Chocolate Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Boil the chocolate in the milk until dissolved.

  2. Pour the chocolate mixture over the bread crumbs.

  3. Let the mixture stand for 1 hour.

  4. Mash the mixture through a sieve until perfectly smooth.

Mix and steam

  1. Add the well-beaten eggs, butter, sugar, nutmeg, and slightly chopped fruit and nuts.

  2. Steam for 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Serve with whipped cream.

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. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten eggs set during steaming, giving the pudding its structure and a light, custard-like body.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the chocolate milk and form the bulk of the body once mashed smooth.
Unsweetened chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour and deep colour.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, softer texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and adds moisture that keeps the pudding tender.

The step that matters

Mash the mixture through a sieve until perfectly smooth. Any lumps of bread crumb left in the base will not break down during steaming, leaving a grainy texture. Pressing it fully smooth before adding the eggs gives an even, uniform result.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chocolate, butter, milk, sugar, bread, nutmeg, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chocolate, butter, milk, sugar, bread, nutmeg, 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.

You might also like

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipes