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Souffle Au Cafe

A chilled coffee soufflé made with egg yolks, whites, sugar, coffee, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 Au Cafe

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Combine the yolks of 10 eggs, the whites of 5 eggs, and 3 to 4 ounces of caster sugar in a basin.

  2. Whip the mixture over boiling water until thick and warm, then remove from heat and let cool until stiff.

  3. Stir in 6 tablespoons of strong black coffee or 2 tablespoons of essence of coffee.

  4. Fold in ½ cup of stiffly whipped cream.

Freeze

  1. Pour the mixture into a papered soufflé dish that has been chilled in the ice cave.

  2. Freeze for about 3 hours.

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. Coffee + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,339 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + coffeetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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
Enrich the custard, adding richness and a smooth, set texture when frozen.
Egg whites
Whipped to foam, they lighten the mixture and give the soufflé its airy structure.
Caster sugar
Sweetens the mixture and helps stabilise the whipped foam.
Strong black coffee
Provides the main coffee flavour and liquid to the mixture.
Whipped cream
Adds fat and softness, keeping the frozen texture light and creamy.

The step that matters

Whip over boiling water until thick, then let cool until stiff. Whipping the eggs and sugar over gentle heat thickens and warms them so the foam holds its volume. The mixture must cool until stiff before folding in the coffee and cream, otherwise the air collapses and the soufflé loses its lift.

“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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