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Dessert

Potato Floue Souffle

A sweet souffle made with potato flour, sugar, butter, milk, and eggs, flavored with lemon or orange rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Potato Floue 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.

Make the base

  1. In a saucepan, combine potato flour, sugar, butter, salt, lemon or orange rind, and milk or cream.

  2. Stir over medium heat until it boils, ensuring the butter remains smooth.

  3. Remove from heat and mix in the egg yolks.

Prepare and bake

  1. Whisk the egg whites until firm and fold them into the mixture gently.

  2. Prepare a souffle dish by lining it with buttered paper to prevent overflow.

  3. Pour the mixture into the dish and place it on a baking sheet.

  4. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 45 minutes, rotating occasionally for even cooking.

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. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Potato + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

  5. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

Flour and butter 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

Potato flour
Forms the thick body of the batter and gives the souffle its light, tender structure.
Egg whites
Whisked to firm peaks, they trap air and make the souffle rise and become airy.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and help set the custard as it bakes, adding richness and body.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich, tender texture and smooth mouthfeel.
Milk or cream
Supplies liquid that cooks with the flour into a thick base and adds richness.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites must be whisked firm but folded in gently; overmixing deflates the trapped air, so the souffle rises less and turns dense.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

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