Skip to main content
Dessert

Orange Souffle

A light, citrusy baked dessert made with orange zest, milk, and a meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Orange Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the crumbs

  1. Boil the milk.

  2. Pour the hot milk over the crumbs.

  3. Let the crumbs soak while preparing the other ingredients.

Make the soufflé base

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the egg yolks and one egg white.

  3. Beat the mixture well.

  4. Add half the grated orange rind, two teaspoons of orange juice, noyeau, and the cake crumbs to the mixture.

  5. Pour the mixture into a buttered souffle dish.

  6. Bake for 30 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

Top and finish

  1. Whisk the remaining egg white to stiff peaks.

  2. Spread the stiff egg white over the souffle.

  3. Sprinkle the souffle with caster sugar.

  4. Garnish with cherries.

  5. Return the souffle to the oven until the meringue is lightly browned.

  6. Serve warm.

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

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

  2. Orange + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks and whites set the soufflé and the whipped white gives it lift.
Breadcrumbs
Soak up the hot milk to form the body of the soufflé.
Butter
Enriches the base and adds richness and flavour.
Milk
Hydrates the crumbs and moistens the mixture.
Caster sugar
Sweetens the base and helps the top brown lightly.

The step that matters

Spread the stiff egg white over the soufflé. Egg whites must be whisked to stiff peaks; under-whipped or deflated whites will not hold air, so the topping won't rise or stay light in the oven.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipesOrange GelatinOrange Gelatin100 recipesOrange SherbetOrange Sherbet73 recipes