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 ↓
Cheese Souffle
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the base
Melt the butter in a saucepan.
Stir in the wheatmeal and season with mustard, pepper, and salt.
Pour in the milk and stir until the mixture thickens and pulls away from the sides of the saucepan.
Transfer the mixture to a bowl and let it cool.
Finish and bake
Stir in the grated cheese.
Add the egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks and gently fold them into the mixture.
Pour the mixture into a buttered Soufflé dish and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,962 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,430 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,426 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,805 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Whites trap air when whipped, lifting the soufflé as it bakes; yolks add richness and set the structure.
- Parmesan cheese
- Adds concentrated savoury flavour and fat, giving the soufflé its rich, cheesy taste and body.
- Wheatmeal flour
- Thickens the butter and milk into a roux-based sauce that gives the base its structure.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base with the flour, creating a smooth, thick sauce that carries the other ingredients.
- Butter
- Adds fat and flavour and helps form the roux that thickens the base.
The step that matters
Folding in the egg whites. Whites must be whipped to stiff peaks and folded gently so air is kept in the mixture. Overmixing deflates the foam, and the soufflé will rise less in the oven.
Swap the mustard
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, egg, milk, butter, pepper):
- Potatofits better
- Capsicumfits better
- Asparagusfits better
- Mustardthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, egg, milk, butter, pepper. 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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