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Dessert

Corn Meal Souffle

A baked cornmeal soufflé made with milk, butter, sugar, eggs, and served with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Corn Meal 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 cornmeal base

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler until steam rises from the lower boiler.

  2. Slowly add the corn meal while stirring constantly.

  3. Cover and cook for 30 minutes.

Prepare the eggs and sugar

  1. Separate the eggs.

  2. Beat the yolks until light.

  3. Add the sugar to the yolks and beat until very light.

Combine and bake

  1. Stir the yolk mixture and butter into the hot corn meal mixture.

  2. Remove from heat.

  3. Gently fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  4. Pour the mixture into a buttered pudding dish and bake for 20 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

  5. Serve with a hard or liquid 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped whites give the soufflé its lift, and the yolks enrich the structure and flavor.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the cornmeal cooks into a thick, creamy mixture.
White corn meal
Thickens with heat as its starch gelatinizes, giving the soufflé body and a grainy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the yolks whip to a lighter, more stable texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing flavor and a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites must be stiffly beaten and folded in gently. Overmixing deflates the air bubbles that make the soufflé rise, so it bakes flat and dense.

“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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