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Dessert

Lemon Souffle

A light dessert made with butter, lemon, sugar, eggs, and gelatin, finished with a sugar topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Lemon Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a saucepan, combine the butter, 2 oz. sugar, lemon juice, grated rind of 1 lemon, and the beaten yolks of 4 eggs.

  2. Stir over low heat until the mixture thickens to the consistency of thick cream, but do not let it boil.

Steam and finish

  1. Add the stiffly beaten egg whites and mix gently.

  2. Steam the mixture for 16 minutes.

  3. Once cooled, cover the soufflé with slightly beaten cream and decorate as desired.

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 + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
Yolks thicken the base, and whites whipped stiff add lift and airy structure.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture.
Gelatine
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when cool.
Lemons
Juice gives sharp acidity and the grated rind adds fresh aroma.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and balances the lemon's tartness.

The step that matters

Thicken the base over low heat without boiling. Egg yolks thicken gently at moderate heat. If the mixture boils, the yolks scramble, leaving lumps and a grainy texture instead of a smooth, thick base.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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