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Dessert

Souffles

A sweet fried batter made with butter, sugar, water, lemon, flour, and eggs, dusted with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Souffles

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add sugar, water, and grated lemon; bring to a boil.

  3. Stir in flour until thickened and raw flour taste disappears.

  4. Remove from heat and mix in the eggs until well combined.

  5. Spread mixture on a large dish and cut into small pieces.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat oil in a frying pan until tepid.

  2. Fry the pieces slowly until golden, then drain on a soft cloth.

  3. Dust with powdered sugar and serve.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 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

Flour
Thickens the mixture and cooks out its raw taste, giving the pieces body.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set as it cools, giving the pieces structure.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing to tenderness and flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the fried pieces brown to a golden color.

The step that matters

Fry the pieces slowly until golden. Oil that is too hot browns the outside before the inside cooks through, while slow frying lets the interior heat evenly and dry out gently.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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