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Dessert

Zephyr Souffles

A light, airy almond and sugar soufflé flavored with peppermint.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and peppermint match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 208 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Zephyr Souffles

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 mixture

  1. In a bowl, whisk the egg whites and sugar together over a very low heat until you have a substantial white frothy icing.

  2. Add the shredded almonds and about three drops of peppermint essence, then gently mix everything together.

Shape and bake

  1. Spread sheets of white wafer on baking plates.

  2. Using a spoon, drop the mixture in lumps the size of a large walnut, spacing them 1.5 inches apart.

  3. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until they are a very light color.

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. Almond + pepperminttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together208 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  4. Almond + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Sugar + pepperminttop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,082 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped with sugar to form the light, frothy structure that holds the souffles up.
Fine sifted sugar
Sweetens the mixture and helps stabilize the frothy egg white foam.
Finely shredded almonds
Add body, nutty flavor and texture to the mixture.

The step that matters

Whisking the egg whites and sugar over very low heat. Egg whites need to form a stable, glossy foam to trap air. Gentle heat helps the sugar dissolve and the foam hold together, so the souffles rise rather than collapse.

Swap the peppermint

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Peppermintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, almond, egg. 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.

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