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Cheese Souffle

A baked cheese soufflé made with milk, eggs, cheese, flour, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the base

  1. Heat the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook for 2 minutes.

  3. Add the hot milk and mix well.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool.

Finish the batter

  1. Once cooled, stir in the cheese and egg yolks.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form and gently fold them into the mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 20 to 25 minutes.

  2. Serve in the same dish.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + buttertop 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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
Whipped whites trap air that lifts the soufflé, and yolks enrich the base.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that, with flour, becomes a smooth sauce holding the cheese.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk mixture so it can support the whipped whites.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the base and helps the flour cook into a roux.
Cheese
Provides savoury flavour and fat that the base carries through baking.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Beaten whites hold the air that makes the soufflé rise. Stirring or overmixing deflates them, so fold gently until no white streaks remain.

“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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