Skip to main content
Dessert

Mocha Souffle

A light, coffee-flavored soufflé made with butter, flour, coffee, cream, sugar, eggs, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Mocha Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°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. Add the flour and stir until combined.

  3. Gradually pour in the hot coffee and cream, stirring continuously.

  4. Add the salt and sugar, then mix in the beaten egg yolks.

  5. Cook over hot water until smooth.

Finish and bake

  1. Remove from heat and gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  2. Add the vanilla and mix well.

  3. Pour into a buttered baking dish.

  4. Bake in a water bath at 350°F (175°C) for 25 minutes.

  5. Serve with Mocha 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Coffee + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,391 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 whites
Trapped air in the whites expands in the oven, lifting and lightening the soufflé.
Egg yolks
Yolks enrich the base and thicken it as they cook, giving a custard-like body.
Flour
Flour thickens the coffee and cream mixture, giving the base enough structure to hold the whites.
Butter
Butter adds richness and fat, softening texture and carrying flavour in the base.
Strong coffee
Coffee supplies the mocha flavour and its bitterness balances the sweetness.
Sugar
Sugar sweetens the base and helps stabilise the mixture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stiffly beaten whites hold air that makes the soufflé rise. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring or overmixing deflates the whites, so the soufflé bakes flat and dense.

“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

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesCoffee Ice CreamCoffee Ice Cream91 recipesCoffee CustardCoffee Custard27 recipesCoffee CakeCoffee Cake21 recipes