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Dessert

Souffle of Oatmeal

A baked oatmeal soufflé with butter, lemon, apples, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Souffle of Oatmeal

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the base

  1. Mix oatmeal, butter, lemon juice, sugar, milk, and cream in a saucepan.

  2. Cook for 5 minutes over medium heat.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in eggs, baking powder, and sliced apples.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour mixture into a buttered pudding dish.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until it swells and turns yellow.

  3. Sprinkle with sugar and serve with 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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Lemon + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Provide structure and lift as they set, helping the soufflé hold its puffed shape.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the heat, helping the mixture rise and swell in the oven.
Oatmeal
Thickens the base and gives the soufflé its body and texture.
Apples
Add moisture and fruity sweetness that balances the lemon juice.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving a softer, smoother texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the eggs after removing from heat. Adding eggs to a very hot mixture can scramble them and prevent a smooth, even batter. Letting the base cool slightly before stirring in the eggs and baking powder helps the soufflé rise evenly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, cream, egg, apple. 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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