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Dessert

Cheese Souffle

A baked cheese soufflé made with butter, flour, milk, salt, cayenne, white pepper, grated cheese, egg yolks, and folded egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the base

  1. In a small saucepan, melt the butter and mix in the flour over medium heat.

  2. Add the milk and stir until the mixture boils and thickens.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the salt, cayenne, white pepper, cheese, and egg yolks one at a time.

Fold and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff and gently fold them into the mixture.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered pie dish and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

  3. Serve immediately.

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

Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they trap air that lifts and gives the souffle its light structure.
Flour
Thickens the melted butter and milk into a smooth base that holds the mixture together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into a white sauce.
Cheese
Adds savory flavor and richness to the base.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and add richness and body to the finished souffle.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. The whipped whites hold the air that makes the souffle rise. Stirring them vigorously deflates the foam, so the souffle bakes up flat and dense instead of light.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, cheese, egg, pepper. 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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