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Dessert

Custard Souffle

A baked custard soufflé made with butter, milk, flour, eggs, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Custard Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the flour and gradually stir in the hot milk until well thickened.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks until thick and lemon-colored, then mix in the sugar.

  4. Cool the thickened mixture slightly, then pour it onto the egg yolks and mix well.

Fold and bake

  1. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff and dry, then gently fold them into the mixture.

  2. Turn the mixture into a buttered pudding dish.

  3. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 30 to 35 minutes.

  4. Serve immediately, as it will fall if not served right away.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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
Whites trap air when beaten, lifting the souffle, while yolks enrich the custard and set it.
Flour
Thickens the milk with the melted butter into a stable custard base that holds the air.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into a smooth custard.
Butter
Enriches the base and, with the flour, forms the roux that thickens the milk.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and adds body to the egg yolk mixture.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. Stiff whites hold the air that makes the souffle rise. Vigorous stirring deflates them, so fold slowly with a spatula. Serve right away, because the structure collapses as it cools.

“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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