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Dessert

Arrowroot Souffle

A light, baked dessert made with arrowroot, milk, sugar, eggs, and a bay leaf.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Arrowroot and milk work together. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 817 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

Arrowroot 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.

Prepare the base

  1. Mix the arrowroot smoothly with a little cold milk.

  2. Boil the remaining milk with the flavoring ingredient and let it infuse for 10 minutes.

  3. Strain the infused milk onto the arrowroot, stirring briskly.

  4. Return the mixture to the saucepan and simmer gently for about 10 minutes.

Finish and bake

  1. Add the sugar and beat each egg yolk into the mixture.

  2. Stir in the stiffly whisked egg whites.

  3. Pour the preparation into a well-buttered baking dish.

  4. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 25 to 30 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. Arrowroot + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together817 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  2. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Arrowroot + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,073 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Arrowroot
Thickens the milk into a smooth, stable base as it heats.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and thicken the base; whipped whites give the soufflé its lift and airy structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the flavor of the custard base.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the arrowroot thickens into a custard.

The step that matters

Stir in the stiffly whisked egg whites. Whites hold air that makes the soufflé rise. Stirring too hard or too long deflates the foam, so the bake comes out dense and flat.

Swap the arrowroot

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, milk. 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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