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Dessert

Chocolate Souffle

A baked chocolate custard made with butter, flour, milk, egg yolks, sugar, and grated chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Chocolate 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. In a saucepan, heat the butter to make a roux.

  2. Stir in the flour and gradually add the scalding milk as it thickens.

  3. Cook for 2 minutes.

  4. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together until light.

  5. Stir the thickened milk into the egg mixture and beat for 1 minute.

  6. Add the grated chocolate and beat until the mixture cools.

  7. Cover and set aside until cold.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Egg yolks
Add richness and help set the mixture into a light, custardy structure when baked.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a roux that gives the base body and holds the soufflé's structure.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the roux thickens and that the yolks enrich.
Grated chocolate
Adds flavor and fat, giving the base a rich, dense character.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and helps the yolks whip to a light, stable texture.

The step that matters

Let the base cool before folding in the whites. A base that is too hot can deflate or cook the egg yolks, and a cold base keeps the air in later whipped whites for a higher rise. Here, the record says to beat the chocolate in until the mixture cools and then chill it until cold.

“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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