Skip to main content
Dessert

Cheese Souffle

A baked cheese soufflé made with butter, flour, milk, eggs, cheese, salt, cayenne, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Cheese Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan, then add the flour, salt, cayenne, and baking soda.

Make the base

  1. Slowly stir in the hot milk and cook for 5 minutes.

  2. Add the cheese and beaten egg yolks, mixing well.

  3. Allow the mixture to cool.

  4. Once cooled, fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered baking dish.

  2. Bake until golden brown, then serve immediately.

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 + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Eggs
Whites trap air for lift, and yolks enrich and help set the soufflé as it bakes.
Flour
Thickens the hot milk into a sauce that gives the base enough body to hold the risen air.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding moisture and a soft, creamy texture.
Cheese
Adds savory flavor and richness to the base.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and starts the flour-based sauce.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stiffly beaten whites hold trapped air that makes the soufflé rise. Folding gently keeps that air in, while stirring hard or adding whites to a warm base can deflate the mixture and reduce lift.

“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.

More cheese soufflé recipes

Cold 4 See all 198 →

You might also like

Cheese BallsCheese Balls97 recipesCheese CakeCheese Cake55 recipesCream CheeseCream Cheese46 recipesLemon PieLemon Pie37 recipes