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Dessert

Vanilla Souffle

A light, airy vanilla-flavored soufflé made with milk, flour, butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Vanilla Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the base

  1. In a saucepan, combine flour, butter, and milk. Bring to a boil and stir for 5 minutes to cook the flour.

  2. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together until creamy, then stir into the mixture.

Fold and bake

  1. Allow the mixture to cool, then gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  2. Half-fill buttered small paper or china cases with the mixture.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 10 minutes.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 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

Flour
Starch thickens the milk and butter into a stable base that holds the soufflé's shape.
Milk
Liquid that forms the thickened base and supplies moisture for the finished soufflé.
Butter
Fat that enriches the base and adds flavour and a tender texture.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the base, while whipped whites trap air so the soufflé rises.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the base and adds to its smooth, creamy texture.
Vanilla
Adds aroma to the creamy base.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites hold the air that makes a soufflé rise. Fold gently and only after the base has cooled, since heavy stirring deflates the foam and hot base can partly cook and collapse it.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, butter, sugar, egg. 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.

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