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Dessert

Souffle of Potatoe Flour, with Vanilla, Chocolate, or Rose

A soufflé made from potato flour, sugar, eggs, and flavored with vanilla, chocolate, or rose.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Souffle of Potatoe Flour, with Vanilla, Chocolate, or Rose

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the base

  1. Mix flour, sugar, and salt in a small amount of water.

  2. Work in the egg yolks gradually.

  3. Add the whole eggs and orange flower water.

Fold and bake

  1. Mix well and fold in the whipped egg whites carefully.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a serving dish, shaping it high.

  3. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven until it begins to brown.

  4. Glaze with sugar.

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. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Flour + orangetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,821 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
Whipped air bubbles give the soufflé its light, risen structure as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the base into a smooth, custard-like mixture.
Flour
Thickens the base so it can hold the whipped egg whites without collapsing.
Sugar
Sweetens the soufflé and helps the glazed top brown.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Stirring vigorously deflates the whipped foam that gives the soufflé its lift. Fold gently with a spatula, cutting down through the mixture and turning it over, so the bubbles survive into the oven.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, 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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