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Dessert

Vanilla Souffle

A light, airy custard baked in cups, served with vanilla sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,787 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Vanilla 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. Combine flour and cold cream or milk in a saucepan.

  2. Cook until thickened.

  3. Separate the eggs.

  4. Stir the yolks into the hot mixture and remove from heat.

Fold and bake

  1. Gently fold in the well-beaten egg whites.

  2. Grease custard cups and fill them with the mixture.

  3. Place the cups in boiling water and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15-20 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with vanilla sauce.

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. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Cream and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,301 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

Flour
Thickens the cream into a stable base that holds the soufflé's structure.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and flavour the base, while whipped whites provide the rising structure.
Cream or milk
Supplies moisture and richness to the thickened base.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the well-beaten egg whites.. Folding preserves the air trapped in the whites. Stirring or deflating them causes the soufflé to rise poorly and turn dense.

Swap the vanilla

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, cream, egg, sauce):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillathe original
  3. Avocadofits about as well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, cream, egg, sauce. 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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