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Dessert

Souffle, Scotch

A puff pastry base topped with apricots, a custard made from egg yolks and apricot juice, and whipped egg whites, finished with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and rhubarb share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 26 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Souffle, Scotch

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the base

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Line a flat dish with rough puff pastry.

  3. Bake the lined dish.

Make the topping

  1. Fill the center with apricots from the can.

  2. Beat the yolks of 3 eggs with ½ cup of apricot juice until thick over hot water.

  3. Pour the mixture over the apricots.

  4. Whip the whites of 3 eggs to a stiff froth.

  5. Pile the whipped whites on top of the mixture.

  6. Dredge sugar over the top.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until pale brown.

  2. 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. Apricot + rhubarbtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together26 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,630 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + rhubarbtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,852 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

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

  5. Apricot + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,712 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the mixture and add richness when heated gently over hot water.
Egg whites
Whipped to a stiff froth, they create the light, airy structure of the soufflé topping.
Apricots
Provide the fruit filling and sweetness beneath the soufflé topping.
Sugar
Dredged over the top, it sweetens the surface and helps it brown during baking.

The step that matters

Beating the yolks over hot water. The yolks must be beaten until thick over gentle heat. Overheating can scramble the egg proteins, while under-beating leaves the mixture thin and unable to support the topping.

Swap the rhubarb

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Rhubarbthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apricot, egg, sugar. 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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