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Cheese Souffle

A light, baked cheese soufflé made with butter, flour, milk, Parmesan, egg yolks, and folded egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Cheese Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Mix in the flour, salt, cayenne, and milk, stirring continuously until thick.

  3. Stir in the grated cheese until well combined.

  4. Remove from heat and mix in the egg yolks.

Fold and bake

  1. Whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form and gently fold them into the mixture.

  2. Pour the mixture into a small round tin, filling it only halfway.

  3. Pin a napkin around the dish and bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

  4. Serve immediately after baking.

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 + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + parmesan cheesetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  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 whites
Whisked into stiff peaks, they trap air that lifts the soufflé as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and help set the structure as the soufflé cooks.
Flour
With the butter, forms a roux that thickens the milk into a stable base.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the roux thickens into a smooth sauce.
Butter
Fat that starts the roux and adds richness and flavour.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury, salty flavour and some fat to the base.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped whites hold air bubbles that make the soufflé rise. Stirring vigorously or overmixing deflates them, so the soufflé bakes flat and dense. Fold gently, just until no white streaks remain.

“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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