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Dessert

Chocolate Souffle

A steamed chocolate soufflé made with chocolate, flour, sugar, butter, milk, eggs, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Chocolate Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Combine milk and chocolate in a small saucepan and simmer gently until dissolved.

  2. Melt butter in a separate pan, then stir in flour.

  3. Add the chocolate mixture and boil well.

  4. Let the mixture cool slightly.

  5. Add vanilla and sugar.

  6. Add egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Finish and steam

  1. Gently fold in the stiffly whisked egg whites.

  2. Pour mixture into a well-greased mold.

  3. Steam gently for 45 to 50 minutes.

  4. Serve with custard or sweet sauce.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Whisked to foam and folded in, they trap air that lifts the souffle as it steams.
Egg yolks
Beaten in one at a time, they enrich the base and help it set into a tender crumb.
Flour
Cooked with butter into a roux, it thickens the base so it can hold the air from the whites.
Chocolate
Melted into the milk, it provides the main flavour and some richness to the base.
Butter
Melted with the flour, it adds fat and richness to the thickened base.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. Stiffly whisked whites hold air bubbles that make the souffle rise. Heavy stirring knocks that air out, so the mixture must be folded lightly and quickly to keep it light.

“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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