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Dessert

Cheese Souffle

A baked cheese soufflé made with butter, flour, milk, cheese, eggs, and seasoning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Add the flour and stir until smooth.

  3. Gradually add the milk, stirring continuously until smooth.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten egg yolks, grated cheese, salt, and pepper.

  5. Transfer the mixture to a pudding dish and let it cool.

Bake and serve

  1. Half an hour before serving, fold in the beaten egg whites.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden brown and serve immediately.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Whites trapped air and expand in the oven, lifting the souffle; yolks enrich the base.
Butter
Fat that combines with flour to form a roux, giving the base richness and smooth body.
Flour
Thickens the milk and butter into a stable base that holds the rising structure.
Milk
Liquid that, with the flour, forms a thick white sauce carrying the cheese.
Cheese
Adds savory flavor and fat, and helps set the base as it bakes.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air in the whites. Stirring or deflating them makes the souffle 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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