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Dessert

Souffle Aux Mille-fleurs Glaces

A frozen soufflé made with egg yolks, sugar, brandy, whipped cream, and preserved fruits.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Souffle Aux Mille-fleurs Glaces

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wrap a band of thick white paper around a soufflé dish, about 6 inches high.

  2. Fill a large tub with pounded ice and salt, and place the soufflé dish in the center.

Make the soufflé

  1. Whisk the egg yolks with cold water over low heat until warm and resembling a light biscuit batter.

  2. Remove from heat and continue whisking until cool.

  3. Add powdered sugar and brandy or maraschino, then fold in the whipped cream gently.

  4. Cover the bottom of the soufflé dish with preserved fruits.

  5. Pour the soufflé mixture over the fruits, filling the paper band.

Freeze

  1. Place the dish in the ice and salt mixture to set.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Brandy + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  4. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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 yolks
Whisked warm, they thicken and emulsify the mixture, giving it a light, rich body.
Heavy cream
Whipped and folded in, it adds air and a smooth, creamy texture once frozen.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the mixture and softens the texture, keeping the frozen soufflé from freezing rock hard.
Brandy or maraschino
Adds aroma and flavor, and its alcohol keeps the frozen texture softer.

The step that matters

Whisking the yolks over low heat. Heating egg yolks gently until warm and thickened lets them set into a stable base. If they get too hot they can scramble, and the soufflé loses its smooth, 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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