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Dessert

Arrowroot Souffle

A light, sweet souffle made with arrowroot, milk, eggs, lemon peel, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Arrowroot and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 553 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Arrowroot Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the base

  1. Boil the milk with the lemon peel.

  2. Mix the arrowroot with a little cold milk until it is as thick as cream.

  3. Pour the boiling milk onto the arrowroot.

  4. Return the mixture to the saucepan and stir over the heat until it thickens.

  5. Pour the mixture into a bowl.

Finish and bake

  1. When cold, add the beaten yolks of the eggs and sugar to taste.

  2. Whip the egg whites to a firm froth.

  3. Gently fold the whipped egg whites into the mixture.

  4. Pour the mixture into a buttered pie dish and bake for 30 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

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. Arrowroot + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Milk + arrowroottop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together817 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Arrowroot
Thickens the milk into a smooth custard base as it heats.
Eggs
Yolks enrich the base and whites, whipped and folded in, lighten the souffle.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the arrowroot thickens.

The step that matters

Gently fold the whipped egg whites into the mixture.. Whipped whites hold air that makes the souffle rise. Folding gently preserves that air, while stirring vigorously would deflate it and leave a dense result.

Swap the arrowroot

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

  1. Asparagusfits about as well
  2. Arrowrootthe original
  3. Sweet potatofits about as well
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, lemon, 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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