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Cheese Souffle

A baked cheese soufflé made with milk, butter, flour, cheese, eggs, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the base

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat and blend in the flour.

  2. Gradually add the milk, stirring until smooth and thickened.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the grated cheese and beaten egg yolks.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

Fold and bake

  1. In a separate bowl, whip the egg whites until firm peaks form, then gently fold them into the cheese mixture.

  2. Pour the mixture into a baking pan and bake at 300°F (150°C) until risen and golden brown.

Serve

  1. 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 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
Yolks enrich the base, and whipped whites provide the airy structure that lifts the soufflé.
Butter
Fat that combines with flour to form a roux, giving the base body and richness.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce that holds the cheese and air bubbles.
Milk
Liquid that, with the flour, forms the thick white sauce base.
Grated cheese
Adds rich flavor and fat, and helps the base set as it bakes.

The step that matters

Fold the egg whites gently. Whipped whites trap air that makes the soufflé rise. Stirring or deflating them during folding removes that air, 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.

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