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Dessert

Cheese Soufflé

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 Soufflé

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. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter and mix in the flour.

  3. Gradually add the milk and seasonings, stirring until it boils.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool slightly before adding the egg yolks.

Finish and bake

  1. Beat in the cheese and then gently fold in the stiffly whipped egg whites, a little at a time.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish and bake until puffed and golden.

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

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

  3. Cheese + milktop 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. 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
Egg yolks enrich the base and whipped whites give the soufflé its light, risen structure.
Butter
Melted with flour, it forms a roux that thickens the milk into a stable base.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk mixture so it can hold the air added later.
Dry cheese
Adds rich flavor and fat, and contributes to the base's body and browning.
Milk
Forms the liquid of the sauce base that the flour thickens into a smooth mixture.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. Whipped egg whites hold the air that makes the soufflé rise. Stirring or deflating them vigorously knocks out 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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