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Dessert

Cheese Souffle

A light, baked cheese dish made with butter, flour, milk, cheese, eggs, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

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 base

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the flour and stir until smooth; then add the milk, salt, and pepper.

  3. Cook for two minutes, then remove from heat.

  4. Stir in the beaten egg yolks and grated cheese, and let cool.

  5. Once cooled, gently fold in the beaten egg whites until combined.

Bake and serve

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

  2. Serve immediately after removing from the 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Butter
Enriches the roux base, adding richness and a smooth, flavorful foundation for the soufflé.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a stable white sauce that holds the soufflé's structure.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving the soufflé a tender, moist body.
Cheese
Adds savory flavor and richness to the base.
Eggs
Yolks enrich the base; whites, beaten and folded in, trap air so the soufflé rises and sets light.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites must be beaten to stiff peaks and folded in gently. Overmixing deflates the trapped air, 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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