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Dessert

Vanilla Souffle

A light, airy vanilla-flavored baked custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Vanilla Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the base

  1. In a saucepan, heat the milk and butter until the butter melts.

  2. Whisk in the flour, sugar, and salt until smooth.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

Fold and bake

  1. Stir in the beaten egg whites and vanilla gently.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.

  3. Bake for 40 minutes until puffed and golden.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Egg whites
Trapped air in the beaten whites lifts the soufflé and gives it a light, airy structure.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture so it can hold the whites' air and set in the oven.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens and that gives moisture to the finished soufflé.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavor in the base.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten egg whites and vanilla gently.. Beaten egg whites hold air bubbles that make the soufflé rise. Stirring them in roughly, or overmixing, knocks out that air, so the soufflé bakes flat and dense instead of puffed.

Swap the vanilla

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, butter, sugar, egg):

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, butter, sugar, egg. 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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