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Dessert

Apple Souffle

A baked apple dessert with a buttery crust, stewed apples, and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and biscuit match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 889 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Apple Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA steady oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a steady oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the crust

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Rub together the butter, flour, and sugar.

  3. Add the yolk and enough cold water to form a paste.

  4. Grease a shallow pie dish.

  5. Cover the dish with the paste, trimming the edges evenly.

  6. Bake the crust until pale brown.

Make the apple filling

  1. In a pot, stew the apples with the sugar, lemon rind, and juice until soft.

  2. Stir in the crumbled Ratifia biscuits and sponge cake.

  3. Mix in the yolks whisked with a little water.

  4. Cook over low heat for a few minutes to set the eggs.

  5. Pour the mixture into the baked crust, smoothing the top.

Top and bake

  1. Whip the egg whites with the fine sugar until stiff.

  2. Spread the whipped egg whites over the apples.

  3. Dust the top with sugar.

  4. Decorate the edge with Ratifia biscuits.

  5. Place the souffle in a nearly cold oven to lightly brown the icing.

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. Flour + biscuittop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together889 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Lemon + biscuittop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together697 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff foam, they give the topping its light, airy lift and structure.
Egg yolks
They enrich the apple mixture and help it set when gently heated, adding richness and body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the crust, giving it a tender, crumbly texture.
Flour
Forms the structure of the crust paste once mixed with fat, liquid and sugar.
Apples
Provide the main fruit body and moisture, softening into the filling when stewed.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and crust and helps the whipped whites stay stable.

The step that matters

Whipping the egg whites. Whites must be whipped until stiff but not dry, since under-whipped whites will deflate and over-whipped whites become grainy and collapse. Stiff whites trap air, which expands in the heat to give the topping its lift.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, butter, flour, lemon, biscuit. 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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