Skip to main content
Dessert

A Plain Souffle

A light, airy custard-like dish made with butter, flour, sugar, milk, egg yolks, egg whites, and vanilla.

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

A Plain Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Sift and dry the flour.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan, then add the flour and milk.

  3. Stir until the mixture thickens, then remove from heat.

  4. Add the sugar and egg yolks one at a time, mixing well.

  5. Flavor with vanilla.

Assemble and cook

  1. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.

  3. Steam gently for 1 hour.

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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff foam, they trap air and make the soufflé rise and turn light.
Egg yolks
Add richness and emulsify the base, and their proteins help set the structure as it cooks.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a stable base that holds the air from the whites.
Butter
Fat that enriches the base and, with the flour, forms the roux that thickens the milk.
Milk
Liquid that hydrates the flour and, once thickened, forms the body of the base.

The step that matters

Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air in the whites. Stirring or deflating them makes the soufflé fall and turn dense instead of rising light.

Swap the vanilla

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