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Dessert

Vanilla Soufflé

A light, airy dessert made from beaten egg whites folded into a vanilla yolk mixture, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Vanilla Soufflé

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Separate the egg yolks and whites into two bowls.

  2. Mix the yolks with sugar and vanilla until frothy.

  3. Add a pinch of salt to the egg whites and whip until stiff peaks form.

  4. Gently fold the whipped egg whites into the yolk mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered soufflé pan.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 25 minutes, until golden.

  3. If not serving immediately, keep warm in a low oven.

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 + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  2. Vanilla + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

Sugar and vanilla 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

Eggs
Whipped whites trap air for lift, and yolks add richness and set the structure of the soufflé.
Sugar
Sweetens the yolk base and helps stabilize the whipped egg whites.
Vanilla extract
Adds aroma and a warm flavor to the yolk base.

The step that matters

Gently fold the whipped egg whites into the yolk mixture. Whipped egg whites hold the air that makes a soufflé rise. Stirring or beating them hard collapses the foam, so the batter loses lift and bakes up dense.

“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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