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Dessert

Vanilla Souffle

A light, airy dessert made by folding beaten egg whites into a vanilla custard base and steaming.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the flour, milk, and sugar, stirring carefully until smooth and stiff.

  3. Remove from heat and add the egg yolks one at a time, beating well.

  4. Stir in the essence of vanilla and lemon juice.

Fold and steam

  1. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth and fold them into the mixture.

  2. Pour into a buttered mold and steam for 20 to 25 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve on a very hot dish with custard sauce.

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

Eggs
Whipped whites trap air and lift the soufflé, while yolks enrich the base.
Flour
Thickens the milk and butter mixture so it can hold the risen structure.
Butter
Fat that forms the base roux and adds richness and flavor.
Milk
Liquid that, with the flour, forms the thick base for the soufflé.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the flavor of the vanilla and lemon.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites must be beaten to a stiff froth and folded gently. Overmixing deflates the trapped air, so the soufflé will not rise properly when steamed.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, milk, sugar, egg, vanilla. 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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