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Dessert

Lemon Souffle

A light, airy dessert made with eggs, lemon zest, sugar, and lemon juice, baked until puffed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemon 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.

Prepare the base

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Beat the yolks of the eggs until light colored and thick.

  3. Gradually add the powdered sugar, then mix in the grated lemon rind and lemon juice.

Make the soufflé

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites with the salt until stiff.

  2. Gently cut and fold the yolk mixture into the egg whites.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered baking dish.

  4. Bake until well puffed and lightly browned.

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. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 trap air and provide the structure that lifts the soufflé, while yolks add richness.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the base and dissolves easily into the beaten yolks, adding body to the batter.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sweetness.
Grated lemon rind
Contributes aromatic oils that give the soufflé its lemon fragrance.

The step that matters

Folding the yolk mixture into the whites. Folding gently keeps the air bubbles in the whipped whites intact. Stirring or deflating them makes the soufflé heavy and limits how much it can rise in the oven.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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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