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Dessert

Arrowroot Soufflee

A light, airy dessert made from milk, arrowroot, eggs, lemon peel, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Arrowroot and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 553 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Arrowroot Soufflee

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the base

  1. Boil the milk with the lemon peel.

  2. Mix the arrowroot with a little cold milk until it is as thick as cream.

  3. Pour the boiling milk onto the arrowroot.

  4. Return to the saucepan and stir over the heat until it thickens.

  5. Pour the mixture into a basin.

  6. When cool, add the beaten yolks of the eggs and sugar to taste.

Fold and bake

  1. Whip the egg whites to a firm froth.

  2. Gently stir the whipped egg whites into the mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered pie dish.

  4. Bake for 30 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

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. Arrowroot + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  3. Milk + arrowroottop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together817 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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
Yolks enrich the base and whites, whipped to a foam, lift the soufflé as it bakes.
Arrowroot
Starch that thickens the hot milk into a smooth base that holds the whipped eggs.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the arrowroot thickens into a custard.

The step that matters

Stir the whipped egg whites in gently. Whipped egg whites hold air bubbles that make the soufflé rise. Vigorous stirring knocks that air out, so the fold should be slow and light.

Swap the arrowroot

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Arrowrootthe original
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, lemon. 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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