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Dessert

Souffles a LA Vanille

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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 ↓

Souffles a LA Vanille

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Infuse the vanilla bean in boiling milk and reduce to half.

  2. Remove the vanilla bean and add butter; bring to a boil.

  3. Stir in flour briskly to form a stiff paste.

  4. Transfer to another vessel and mix in powdered sugar, egg yolks, and salt.

  5. Beat the egg white to stiff peaks and fold in with whipped cream.

Fry and serve

  1. Roll out on a floured board and cut into walnut-sized pieces.

  2. Drop into very hot fat and cook for 3 minutes until golden.

  3. Serve on a napkin with powdered sugar sifted over.

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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 yolks
Add richness and help bind the paste into a smooth, tender mixture.
Egg white
Beaten to stiff peaks, it traps air that lightens the texture.
Flour
Starch that, cooked into a paste, gives the mixture body and structure.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender crumb.
Vanilla bean
Infused into the milk to give aroma and flavor.

The step that matters

Stiffly beaten egg white. Egg white must reach stiff peaks and be folded in gently, because deflating the trapped air removes the lightness the mixture depends on.

“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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