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Souffles Au Parmesan

A baked cheese soufflé made with flour, milk, cream, butter, eggs, Parmesan, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Souffles Au Parmesan

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the base

  1. Dilute flour with milk and cream in a saucepan, seasoning with salt, nutmeg, and cayenne.

  2. Heat the mixture, stirring continuously until it boils and is lump-free.

Finish the mixture

  1. Remove from heat and add butter, egg yolks, and grated Parmesan cheese.

  2. Whip egg whites until firm, then gently fold them into the mixture.

Bake

  1. Fill small cases with the mixture and bake at 400 °F (200 °C) for about 8 minutes, adjusting time based on case size.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Thickens the milk and cream into a stable base that holds the soufflé's shape.
Egg whites
Whipped to foam, they trap air that expands in the oven and lifts the soufflé.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and help it set once heated, adding richness and structure.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury, salty flavour and body to the base.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the base.
Milk
Forms the liquid that the flour thickens into a smooth base.

The step that matters

Fold the whipped egg whites gently. Whipped whites hold trapped air that gives the soufflé its rise. Vigorous stirring knocks that air out, so the soufflé rises less and turns 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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