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Dessert

Vanilla Soufflee

A light, airy custard-like dessert made with eggs, butter, flour, milk, sugar, salt, and vanilla essence.

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 Soufflee

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Butter a 1½ pint soufflé tin and tie a band of buttered paper around it, extending 2 inches above the tin.

  2. Melt 1 ounce of butter.

Make the base

  1. Mix in 1 ounce of flour, castor sugar, and milk. Stir over heat until thickened.

  2. Remove from heat.

  3. Add the yolks of 3 eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Fold and steam

  1. Whip the egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff.

  2. Gently fold into the mixture along with the vanilla essence.

  3. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin.

  4. Steam for 20 to 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Turn out onto a hot dish.

  2. Serve with wine sauce or custard sauce.

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. Butter + milktop 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. Butter + flourtop 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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the base while whipped whites lighten and give the soufflé its rise.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor, and greasing the tin helps the soufflé release cleanly.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture into a stable base that holds the risen structure.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into a smooth custard.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the base and adds softness to the final texture.

The step that matters

Folding the egg whites. Whites hold air only when whipped stiff; folding gently keeps that air in the mixture, so the soufflé rises instead of deflating.

Swap the vanilla

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

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

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