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Dessert

Cheese Souffle

A baked cheese soufflé made with butter, cayenne pepper, flour, milk, salt, egg, and grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the white sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add cayenne, flour, and milk; cook until thick to make a white sauce.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in cheese and the beaten yolk of the egg.

  4. Let the mixture cool.

Bake and serve

  1. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg white.

  2. Pour into a buttered baking dish.

  3. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 15 to 20 minutes.

  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. 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. Milk + cheesetop 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

Egg
The beaten white traps air to lift the soufflé, while the yolk enriches the base and adds richness.
Flour
Starch in the sauce thickens the milk so the base can hold the folded-in air.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the white sauce, giving it body and moisture.
Grated cheese
Adds savory flavor and richness to the base.
Butter
Fat that enriches the sauce and gives it a smooth, rich flavor.

The step that matters

Fold in the stiffly beaten egg white. Folding gently keeps the air bubbles in the whites intact. Deflating them during mixing leaves a dense soufflé instead of a light, risen one.

“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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