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A Fondu, or Cheese Souffle

A cheese soufflé made with grated cheese, eggs, milk, butter, flour, salt, and pepper, baked until puffed.

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

A Fondu, or Cheese Souffle

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.

Make the base

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

  2. Melt butter in a saucepan, add flour, and stir until smooth.

  3. Gradually add milk, stirring until thickened.

  4. Remove from heat and mix in cheese, salt, and pepper.

Bake and serve

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

  2. Pour into a greased baking dish and bake for 30-40 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. 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
Beaten eggs trap air and expand in the oven, giving the soufflé its lift and light texture.
Flour
Flour thickens the melted butter and milk into a smooth sauce that holds the soufflé together.
Cheese
Cheese adds rich flavor and fat, and helps set the custard as it cooks.
Milk
Milk forms the liquid base of the white sauce, adding moisture and body.
Butter
Butter enriches the base and, with flour, forms the roux that thickens the sauce.

The step that matters

Fold the eggs into the cheese mixture. Folding gently keeps the air in the beaten eggs. Stirring or deflating the mixture loses the bubbles that make the soufflé rise.

“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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