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Dessert

Vanilla Souffle

A light, airy dessert made with butter, flour, milk, sugar, vanilla, egg yolks, and whipped egg whites, steamed or baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Butter a souffle mold and tie a band of buttered paper around the top.

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan, mix in the flour, then add the milk and stir until it boils and forms a thick paste.

  2. Remove from heat and let cool slightly, then add the sugar, vanilla, and egg yolks, mixing well.

Bake or steam

  1. Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks and gently fold them into the mixture.

  2. Pour into the prepared mold, cover with buttered paper, and steam slowly for about 30 minutes.

  3. Alternatively, bake in a moderately hot oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 20 minutes.

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. Butter + flourtop 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

Flour
Forms a thick paste with the butter and milk, giving the soufflé its base structure.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air that lifts and gives the soufflé its light texture.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and add richness and structure once mixed in.
Butter
Enriches the base and adds flavor and richness to the paste.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites must be whipped to stiff peaks and folded gently so the trapped air is not lost. Deflated batter bakes flat and dense instead of rising.

Swap the vanilla

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, 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 butter, flour, 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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