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Cheese Souffle

A baked cheese soufflé made with bread crumbs, flour, milk, eggs, and grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,130 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the base

  1. Heat milk in a double boiler.

  2. Add bread crumbs and flour moistened with a little cold milk.

  3. Stir the mixture and cook until it becomes a smooth paste.

  4. Remove from heat.

Finish and bake

  1. Add beaten egg yolks, cheese, salt, and pepper, and mix well.

  2. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

  3. Bake in a 400°F oven for 20 minutes.

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. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 trapped air for lift, and yolks enrich the base and help it set.
Cheese
Adds rich flavor and fat, and helps the soufflé set as it cools.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth paste that holds the soufflé structure.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and add body, giving the soufflé a softer, more stable texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour and crumbs thicken into a paste.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air bubbles in the whites intact. Stirring or overmixing deflates them, so the soufflé rises less during baking.

“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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