Skip to main content
Dessert

Souffle a LA Reine

A French soufflé made with bread, biscuits, sugar, butter, milk, cream, eggs, and orange flower water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Souffle a LA Reine

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the base

  1. In a stewpan, combine the sliced French rolls, ratifia biscuits, loaf sugar, lemon peel, and butter.

  2. Pour boiling milk over the mixture, cover, and let it simmer until the bread absorbs the milk.

  3. Stir the mixture well with a wooden spoon, then add the yolks of 6 eggs and mix thoroughly.

  4. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve, adding the thick boiling cream as you do.

Finish and bake

  1. Warm the batter over low heat, then gradually mix in the beaten egg whites and a little orange flower water.

  2. Pour the mixture into a deep dish, dust with powdered sugar, and bake in a gentle oven at 300°F (150°C).

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Biscuit + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together697 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Enrich the base and add richness and colour to the custard-like batter.
Egg whites
Whipped into the batter to lighten it and help it rise and set in the oven.
French rolls
Bread soaks up the boiling milk and forms the body of the soufflé.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich, tender texture and a smooth mouthfeel.
Thick cream
Adds richness and moisture to the base.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the crust brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Egg whites hold air only if they are beaten properly and mixed in gently. Overmixing deflates the batter, so the soufflé will rise poorly and fall quickly.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raspberryfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against biscuit, sugar, lemon, butter, milk, egg, cream. 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.

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipes