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Cheese Soufflé

A baked cheese soufflé made with butter, flour, milk, cheese, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Cheese Soufflé

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the base

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

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  3. Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute.

  4. Gradually add the milk, stirring until thickened.

  5. Remove from heat and mix in the grated cheese.

Bake

  1. Beat the eggs and fold them into the mixture.

  2. Pour into a greased baking dish and bake for 25-30 minutes until puffed and golden.

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 + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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 and folded in to trap air, which expands in the oven to make the soufflé rise.
Flour
Cooked with butter and milk to form a thickened base that holds the soufflé together.
Grated cheese
Adds rich flavour and fat, and helps give the base body and savour.
Milk
Forms the liquid of the white sauce base, giving it a smooth, creamy texture.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the roux that starts the base.

The step that matters

Fold the eggs into the base gently. Egg whites trap air that makes the soufflé rise. Overmixing or deflating the batter knocks out that air, so the soufflé bakes flat and 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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