Skip to main content
Dessert

Frozen Souffle Glace

A chilled dessert made from eggs, lemon, Madeira wine, sugar, cream, and ice water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Frozen Souffle Glace

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs slightly.

  2. Add lemon juice, grated rind, Madeira wine, sugar, and salt.

  3. Cook until thickened, stirring constantly.

  4. Add beaten egg whites and mix well.

  5. Set the mixture in a pan of ice water to cool, stirring occasionally.

Add the cream and freeze

  1. Beat the heavy cream until stiff.

  2. Fold the stiff cream into the mixture.

  3. Fill small paper cases with the mixture.

  4. Cover the cases with macaroon dust.

  5. Place the cases in a tin mold with a tight-fitting cover.

  6. Pack the mold in salt and ice.

  7. Let stand for two hours.

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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Madeira wine + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together146 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

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

Lemon and sugar 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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard and whites add lightness to the frozen mixture.
Heavy cream
Whipped and folded in, it adds air and a light, creamy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and softens the texture of the frozen dessert.
Madeira wine
Adds aroma and a rich, fortified flavor to the custard.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the custard.

The step that matters

Cook until thickened, stirring constantly. Egg yolks set when heated, so constant stirring over gentle heat keeps the custard smooth and prevents curdling or lumps before it is cooled.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, madeira wine, sugar, cream. 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes