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Dessert

Cheese Souffle

A light, baked cheese soufflé made with milk, flour, cheese, eggs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,426 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. 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.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine butter, flour, and milk to make a sauce.

  2. Add salt, cayenne, and cheese to the sauce.

  3. Remove the sauce from heat and stir in the beaten egg yolks.

Cool and fold

  1. Let the mixture cool.

  2. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered baking dish.

  2. Bake for 20 minutes in a 300°F (150°C) oven.

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. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that carries the flour and cheese.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a sauce that gives the soufflé its body.
Cheese
Adds rich flavor and fat to the sauce.
Egg yolks
Enrich the sauce, adding richness and helping it bind.
Egg whites
Whipped to a foam, they trap air that lifts the soufflé as it bakes.

The step that matters

Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air bubbles in the whipped whites. Stirring or deflating them makes the soufflé heavy and stops it rising well in the oven.

“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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