Name: Egg Souffle
Ingredients: 5 egg yolks; 2 egg whites; 1 cup milk; 2 tablespoons butter (or 1 cup cream); ¼ teaspoon salt

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 ↓

Egg Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the base

Beat together the yolks of 5 eggs and the whites of 2 eggs.
Add 1 cup of milk, 2 tablespoons of butter (or 1 cup of cream), and ¼ teaspoon of salt.

Cook and finish

Pour the mixture into a buttered frying pan over moderate heat (350°F / 175°C).
When the eggs begin to thicken, spread the beaten egg whites over the top.
Transfer to the oven until the egg whites are stiffened.
Fold the soufflé and turn it onto a warm platter.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks: Thicken the base as they cook and add richness and a custard-like texture.
Egg whites: Whip into a foam that lifts the soufflé and sets into a light, airy top.
Milk: Provides the liquid that the eggs thicken into a smooth, pourable base.
Butter: Adds fat for richer flavour and keeps the base tender and easy to release from the pan.

The step that matters

Spread the beaten egg whites over the top once the eggs begin to thicken. If the base is too runny or too set, the whites will not sit properly on top and the soufflé may not rise or stiffen evenly in the oven. Timing the addition to the early thickening keeps the base supportive while the whites set.

“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.