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Dessert

Cold Souffle

A chilled custard dessert made with gelatin, milk, egg yolks, cream, and jam, topped with whipped cream and chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 608 recipes. Both carry 4-methoxybenzaldehyde, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

Cold Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Dissolve the gelatin in a little water, then add it to the boiling milk.

  2. Pour the milk mixture over the egg yolks and add sugar to taste; set aside to cool.

  3. When the mixture is just about to set, whip the cream and fold it into the custard.

Assemble and serve

  1. Layer apricot jam at the bottom of a souffle dish, then pour the custard mixture on top.

  2. Before serving, whip the remaining cream and spread it on top of the souffle.

  3. Sift grated chocolate and a little sugar over the top for garnish.

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. Apricot + vanillatop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together608 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Vanilla + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Gelatine
Sets the custard so it holds its soufflé shape when cold.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard, adding richness and helping it thicken when heated.
Heavy cream
Whipped, it adds air and a light, creamy texture to the soufflé.

The step that matters

Fold the cream in when the custard is just about to set. If the custard has set firmly, the whipped cream cannot fold in evenly and the soufflé loses its light texture. If it is still too runny, the cream sinks and the mixture will not hold its shape.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Apricotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar, cream, vanilla, chocolate. 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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