Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓
Cheese 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
Melt the butter in a saucepan.
Stir in the wheatmeal and season with mustard, pepper, and salt.
Pour in the milk and stir until the mixture thickens and pulls away from the sides of the saucepan.
Transfer the mixture to a bowl and let it cool.
Finish and bake
Grate the cheese and stir it into the mixture.
Separate the egg yolks from the whites.
Add the yolks one by one to the mixture, beating well after each addition.
Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks and gently fold them into the mixture.
Pour the mixture into a buttered souffle dish and bake for 15 minutes at 400°F (200°C).
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,962 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,430 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,426 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,805 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Whipped whites trap air for lift, and yolks enrich the base and add richness.
- Parmesan or other good dry cooking cheese
- Adds concentrated savory flavour and body to the base.
- Allinson fine wheatmeal
- Cooked with butter, it forms a roux that thickens the milk into a stable base.
- Milk
- Hydrates the flour and cooks into a thick sauce that carries the rest of the mixture.
- Butter
- Enriches the roux and adds flavour and tenderness to the base.
The step that matters
Folding in the egg whites. Whites hold air only when whipped to stiff peaks. Folding gently keeps that air in, so the soufflé rises in the oven rather than collapsing. Overmixing deflates the whites and loses the lift.
Swap the mustard
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, egg, milk, butter, pepper):
- Potatofits better
- Capsicumfits better
- Asparagusfits better
- Mustardthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, egg, milk, butter, pepper. 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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