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Cheese Souffle

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 sharp oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the base

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

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

  3. Gradually add the milk, stirring until smooth.

  4. Season with pepper, salt, and cayenne, then stir in the grated cheese.

Finish and bake

  1. Separate the yolks from the whites of the eggs.

  2. Add the yolks to the cheese mixture and mix well.

  3. Whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gently fold them into the mixture.

  4. Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish and bake for 30 minutes at 400°F (200°C).

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + milktop 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. Milk + flourtop 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
Whites trapped as foam lift the soufflé, and yolks add richness and set structure when baked.
Butter
Fat that enriches the base and carries flavour, forming the roux with the flour.
White flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce base that holds the air and cheese.
Milk
Liquid that, with the flour and butter, forms a thick sauce to support the soufflé.
Grated cheese
Provides the main flavour and fat, and helps give the baked soufflé its body.

The step that matters

Whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gently fold them into the mixture.. Egg whites hold air only when whipped to stiff peaks. Folding gently keeps that air in, so the soufflé rises in the oven instead of collapsing.

“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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