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Dessert

Chocolate Souffle

A light chocolate dessert made by folding beaten egg whites into a chocolate base and steaming or baking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,020 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Chocolate Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the base

  1. Cook chocolate crumbs gently until thick and they leave the sides of the pan clear.

  2. Let the mixture cool slightly, then beat in the egg yolks and add the vanilla essence.

Fold and bake

  1. Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks and gently fold them into the mixture.

  2. Pour the batter into a well-greased mold.

  3. Cover the mold with buttered paper.

  4. Steam for 1½ hours, or bake for 1 hour at 350 °F (175 °C).

Serve

  1. Serve with custard, chocolate, or vanilla 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. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Vanilla + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Chocolate + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,543 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Egg and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 27,347 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

Chocolate crumbs
Provide the main flavour and body, thickening into a rich base when cooked gently.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and add richness and structure as they bind the mixture.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air and give the soufflé its light, risen texture.

The step that matters

Folding the egg whites. Whites hold air only while whipped to stiff peaks. Folding gently keeps that air in the batter, so the soufflé rises 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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