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Dessert

Cheese Souffle

A light, baked cheese souffle made with butter, flour, milk, Parmesan, egg yolks, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Cheese 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 over low heat.

  2. Mix in the flour, salt, and cayenne until smooth.

  3. Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly until thickened.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the grated cheese.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix the cheese mixture with the egg yolks.

  2. Whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gently fold them into the cheese mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into a small round tin, filling it halfway.

  4. Pin a napkin around the dish and bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

  5. Serve immediately after baking.

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 + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + parmesan cheesetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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
Whipped whites trap air, lifting the soufflé as it rises and sets, while yolks add richness.
Butter
Fat that enriches the roux and carries flavour into the base.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a stable white sauce that holds the soufflé's structure.
Milk
Liquid that gelatinises with the flour to form the thick base.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury flavour and body to the base, with fat and protein that help set the custard.

The step that matters

Folding the egg whites into the cheese mixture. Folding gently keeps the air in the whisked whites. Stirring or deflating them makes the soufflé rise poorly and turn 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.

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