Skip to main content
Dessert

Vanilla Souffle

A light, steamed custard made with milk, sugar, butter, flour, eggs, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 pan.

  2. Add the flour and stir in the milk, cooking well.

  3. Add the sugar and let it cool.

Finish and bake

  1. Incorporate the egg yolks and vanilla essence, beating well.

  2. Whisk the egg whites until stiff and gently fold them into the mixture.

  3. Pour into a buttered souffle dish, cover with buttered paper, and steam for 30 minutes.

  4. Let it stand for 1 minute before turning out and serve with chocolate 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. Milk + buttertop 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. Vanilla + flourtop 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, which lifts the soufflé as it cooks, and yolks add richness and structure.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk base so it can hold the whipped egg whites.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that the other ingredients thicken and set.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the base and helps the flour form a smooth roux.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites.

The step that matters

Fold the egg whites gently. Whites hold air only when whisked until stiff. Stirring them in vigorously knocks that air out, so the soufflé will rise less and turn out dense.

Swap the vanilla

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

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

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

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes