Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Cheese Souffle
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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, beat the egg yolks until very light.
Make the soufflé
Add the bread crumbs, milk, cheese, salt, cayenne pepper, and baking soda to the yolks and mix well.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Gently fold the egg whites into the cheese mixture.
Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish and bake until golden brown.
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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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,130 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,962 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,426 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Egg whites
- Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air that lifts the soufflé as it bakes.
- Egg yolks
- Enrich the base and add richness and structure as they set in the oven.
- Bread crumbs
- Absorb the milk and give the base body so it holds its shape.
- Cheese
- Adds savory flavor and fat, and helps the top brown as it bakes.
- Sweet milk
- Moistens the crumbs and loosens the base for folding.
The step that matters
Folding the egg whites into the cheese mixture. Folding gently keeps the air bubbles in the whipped whites. Stirring or deflating them makes the soufflé heavy and prevents it from rising well in the oven.
“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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