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Dessert

Vanilla Souffle

A light, airy dessert made with eggs, butter, flour, milk, sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Separate the eggs, placing the yolks in one bowl and the whites in another.

  3. Melt the butter and mix it with the flour and salt.

  4. Add the milk and castor sugar to the butter mixture, stirring until smooth.

Make the soufflé

  1. Whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Gently fold the egg yolks into the milk mixture, then fold in the egg whites.

  3. Pour the mixture into a greased soufflé dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 25-30 minutes until puffed and golden.

  2. Serve immediately.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Eggs
Whipped whites trap air that makes the soufflé rise, while yolks enrich the base and add richness.
Butter
Fat that combines with flour to form a roux, giving the base body and a rich flavour.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk base so it can hold the whipped egg whites.
Milk
Liquid that turns the roux into a smooth, thick base for the soufflé.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites whipped to stiff peaks hold the air that lifts the soufflé. Stirring or overmixing them deflates the foam, so the soufflé rises less and turns dense.

“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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