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Dessert

Vanilla Souffle

A light, airy vanilla custard baked into a souffle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 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, mix flour, butter, milk, and powdered sugar.

  2. Heat gently until warm, then set aside to cool, stirring to prevent scum.

  3. Once cool, stir in egg yolks and vanilla flavoring.

  4. Add liqueur and mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Whip egg whites to a froth and fold into the mixture.

  2. Pour into a souffle tin and bake at 350°F (175°C).

  3. Serve immediately when the souffle is ready.

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. Flour + buttertop 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

Egg whites
Whipped into a foam, they trap air that lifts the soufflé as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base with fat and emulsifiers, adding richness and a smooth, custard-like texture.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture into a stable base that holds the whipped air.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens and the eggs enrich.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the base and dissolves easily into the cooled milk mixture.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites. Whipped whites hold the air that makes the soufflé rise. Folding gently, rather than stirring, keeps that air from collapsing before the mixture goes into the oven.

Swap the vanilla

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

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

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