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Dessert

Quince Souffle

A dessert made with stewed quince, custard, and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Quince Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the quince

  1. Stew the quinces until soft, then slightly sweeten and pass through a colander.

  2. Put the quince puree into a glass dish.

Make the custard and top

  1. In a separate bowl, combine the milk, egg yolks, and 3 tablespoons of sugar to make a custard, then pour it over the quinces.

  2. Whip the egg whites with 2 tablespoons of sugar until light and fluffy, then heap them on top of the custard.

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

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

  2. Quince + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).

  3. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Quince + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,444 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Quinces
Provide the fruit base, with pectin and tartness that give the puree body and flavour.
Egg yolks
Thicken the milk mixture into a custard that sets softly around the fruit.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they lift the topping so it puffs and stays airy.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, adding richness and a soft set.

The step that matters

Whipping the egg whites. Egg whites must be whipped until light and fluffy without collapsing; the proteins trap air to form a stable foam that gives the soufflé its lift. Underwhipped or deflated whites produce a flat, dense topping.

Swap the quince

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, milk, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Quincethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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