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Dessert

Cheese Souffle

A baked cheese soufflé made with bread crumbs, cheese, milk, eggs, butter, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. 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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the base

  1. In a bowl, stir together the cheese and bread crumbs.

  2. Add the boiling milk, cayenne pepper, and salt.

  3. Mix in the egg yolks.

Fold and bake

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gently fold them into the mixture.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered dish.

  3. Place the dish in a pan of hot water and bake for 20 minutes.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  4. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped whites trap air that lifts the soufflé, while yolks add richness and set the custard.
Cheese
Provides fat and savory flavor, and its proteins help set the structure as it bakes.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the hot milk and give the mixture body so it holds its shape.
Boiling milk
Hydrates the crumbs and cheese, forming a smooth base that carries the whipped egg.
Butter
Greases the dish so the soufflé rises evenly and releases cleanly.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites must be beaten to stiff peaks and folded gently so the air bubbles survive. Deflating them makes the soufflé rise poorly and turn 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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