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Dessert

Custard Souffle

A baked custard soufflé made with butter, flour, milk, eggs, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Custard Souffle

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 custard base

  1. Cream the butter in a bowl.

  2. Gradually add the flour to the butter.

  3. Pour in the hot milk slowly while stirring.

  4. Cook in a double boiler for 8 minutes, stirring often.

  5. Beat the egg yolks and mix in the sugar.

  6. Add the yolk mixture to the cooled milk mixture.

Whip and fold

  1. Chill the egg whites in the refrigerator.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  3. Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour into a buttered pudding dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

  2. Serve immediately with a creamy sauce.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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
Yolks thicken the custard, while whipped whites provide the airy structure that lifts the soufflé.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the base and helps form the smooth starting roux.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture with butter so the base holds its body.
Hot milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, giving moisture and a soft, tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard base and adds a little tenderness to the finished soufflé.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whites hold air only when beaten to stiff peaks. Folding gently keeps that air in, so the soufflé rises in the oven instead of deflating.

“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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