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Dessert

Lemon Souffle

A chilled lemon dessert made by dissolving sugar and isinglass in boiling water, whisking until spongy, then refrigerating.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soufflé

  1. Pour boiling water over isinglass, lemon juice, and sugar.

  2. Boil the mixture for 5 minutes until dissolved.

  3. Pour into a large basin and let it cool until steam dissipates.

  4. Whisk the mixture until it becomes spongy.

Chill and set

  1. Transfer to a glass dish and refrigerate overnight.

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. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Isinglass
Gelatin-like setting agent that gives the soufflé its firm, wobbly structure as it chills.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Provides acidity and bright lemon flavour.

The step that matters

Whisking the cooled mixture until spongy. Whisking must happen once the mixture has cooled enough to thicken but is still fluid. If it is too hot, the whisked foam collapses; if it has already set, it cannot aerate well, so the soufflé loses its light texture.

“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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