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Cheese Souffle

A light, baked cheese dish made with butter, flour, milk, cheese, eggs, salt, pepper, and paprika.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a chafing dish.

  2. Add the flour and stir until it forms a smooth paste.

  3. Gradually add the milk, stirring until the mixture thickens.

  4. Stir in the cheese and cook until melted.

Add the eggs and cook

  1. Beat the egg yolks until light and add them to the mixture.

  2. When the mixture is the consistency of custard, gently fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  3. Cover and cook for 10 to 15 minutes.

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
Whites trapped in the base create the airy, risen structure of the soufflé, while yolks enrich the custard.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth sauce that holds the soufflé together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the white sauce, giving the soufflé its creamy body.
Old cheese
Adds rich flavor and fat to the base, and helps give the soufflé its savory taste.
Butter
Enriches the base and adds flavor to the starting roux.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stiff whites hold the air that lifts the soufflé. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring or overmixing deflates the batter, so the soufflé rises poorly.

“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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