Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Orange-Flower Water Souffle
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the tin
Grease a souffle tin with butter.
Fold a half sheet of kitchen paper in three, brush with melted butter, and fasten it around the top of the tin, letting it extend three inches above.
Make the base
Melt the butter in a small saucepan, then mix in the flour smoothly.
Add the milk, stir, and cook well.
Mix in the sugar and beat in the yolks of seven eggs, one by one.
Add the orange-flower water.
Steam and serve
Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks and gently fold them into the mixture.
Pour the mixture into the tin, cover with buttered paper, and steam carefully for nearly an hour.
When cooked, it should be firm in the middle. Turn it onto a hot dish and serve immediately with sauce poured around it.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 and set the custard, while whipped whites lighten and raise the souffle.
- Flour
- Thickens the butter and milk base so it holds the eggs and sets firmly.
- Butter
- Adds richness and flavour to the base and greases the tin so the souffle releases cleanly.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid body of the base, giving a soft, creamy texture once cooked.
- Castor sugar
- Sweetens the base and adds a little structure to the beaten egg mixture.
The step that matters
Folding in the egg whites. Whites hold air only while whipped to stiff peaks. Folding gently preserves that air, so the souffle rises in the steam instead of collapsing and turning dense.
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, milk, egg, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, 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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