Skip to main content
Dessert

Chocolate Souffle

A baked chocolate soufflé made with chocolate, butter, flour, eggs, milk, and vanilla, served with custard sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Vanilla and milk 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 ↓

Chocolate Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Grate the chocolate and mix it with the milk.

  2. Boil until smooth.

  3. Melt the butter and flour, stirring until smooth.

  4. Add the chocolate mixture and boil.

  5. Remove from heat.

  6. Add the egg yolks one by one, then the vanilla essence.

Fold and steam

  1. Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  2. Gently fold them into the mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into a prepared tin.

  4. Steam for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Turn out the souffle.

  2. Serve with custard 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. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  4. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Vanilla and sugar 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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air that lifts the soufflé as it cooks.
Egg yolks
Add richness and emulsify the base, helping it set smoothly around the air.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk base so it holds the whipped whites.
Chocolate
Provides the main flavour and body of the base.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the roux-based base.

The step that matters

Folding the whites into the mixture. Whites deflate quickly when stirred hard. Folding gently keeps the trapped air intact, so the soufflé rises properly when steamed.

“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

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipesChocolate FudgeChocolate Fudge55 recipes