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Dessert

Arrow-root Souffle

A custard-like souffle made with arrowroot, milk, eggs, lemon, and topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Arrow-root Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the base

  1. Boil the milk.

  2. Mix the arrow-root with a little cold water and stir into the boiling milk.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool.

  4. Add the egg yolks, lemon juice, lemon rind, and sugar to the cooled mixture.

  5. Fold in the beaten egg white.

Bake and top

  1. Pour into a baking dish and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 to 30 minutes.

  2. For the meringue, beat the egg whites until foamy, then add the powdered sugar and beat until stiff and glossy.

  3. Spread the meringue over the souffle and return to the oven for 2 to 3 minutes until slightly browned.

  4. 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 + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base that the arrow-root thickens into a smooth custard.
Arrow-root
Thickens the boiling milk into a smooth base that holds the souffle together.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and add richness and colour to the set souffle.
Egg whites
Beaten whites trap air, lifting the souffle as it bakes and giving a light texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg white. Folding gently keeps the air in the beaten whites. Stirring or deflating them makes the souffle rise less and turn dense.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, 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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