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Mushroom Souffle

A light, baked mushroom custard made with butter, cream, flour, mushrooms, mushroom liquor, eggs, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Mushroom Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the flour, then gradually add the mushroom liquor and cream, seasoning with salt and pepper.

  3. Beat the egg yolks slightly and stir them into the sauce.

  4. Cook the sauce for 2-3 minutes.

  5. Add the chopped mushrooms and remove from heat.

Bake and serve

  1. When slightly cool, fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered baking dish.

  3. Set the dish in a pan of hot water and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.

  4. Serve immediately.

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 + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,500 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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 trapped in the base expand with heat and give the soufflé its risen, airy structure.
Flour
Thickens the butter and liquid into a sauce that holds the rest of the mixture together.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and adds fat for a soft, rich texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the base a smoother, softer texture.
Chopped mushrooms
Provide the main earthy flavor and some body to the mixture.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. Stiffly beaten whites hold air that makes the soufflé rise. Folding gently keeps that air in, while stirring or cooling the base too much can deflate it before baking.

“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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