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Dessert

Custard Souffle

A baked custard soufflé made with butter, flour, milk, eggs, and sugar, served with fruit sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Custard Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the flour and add the milk.

  3. Bring to a boil and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring briskly.

  4. Add the sugar and beat in the egg yolks.

Bake and serve

  1. Whisk the egg whites until stiff and gently fold them into the mixture.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased pie dish.

  3. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 20 minutes.

  4. Serve with fruit 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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
Egg whites whipped to stiff peaks trap air, lifting the soufflé as it bakes and sets.
Flour
Cooked with butter and milk, it thickens the base so it can hold the whipped foam.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the base and helps the flour cook smoothly.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into a custard-like mixture.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the base and adds body to the custard.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped whites hold air that makes the soufflé rise. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring or deflating the mixture leaves a dense, flat result.

“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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