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Dessert

Lemon Souffle

A light, airy dessert made from egg yolks, sugar, lemon zest and juice, folded with beaten egg whites and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the base

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Beat the egg yolks until thick and lemon colored.

  3. Gradually add the sugar while continuing to beat.

  4. Mix in the lemon rind and juice.

Fold and bake

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Gently cut and fold the beaten egg whites into the yolk mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered pudding dish.

  4. Set the dish in a pan of hot water and bake for 35 to 40 minutes.

  5. Serve with or without sauce.

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 + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
Provide richness and structure through emulsifying fat and thickening when beaten and baked.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff foam, they trap air that lifts the souffle as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the dish and helps stabilize the beaten yolks and whites.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sweetness.
Lemon rind
Contributes concentrated lemon aroma from the aromatic oils in the peel.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Cutting and folding gently keeps the air bubbles in the whipped whites. Stirring hard deflates the foam, so the souffle bakes flat and dense instead of rising.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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