A soufflé is a baked egg-based dish originating in France in the early eighteenth century. Combined with various other ingredients it can be served as a savory main dish or sweetened as a dessert. The word soufflé is the past participle of the Frenchverb souffler which means "to blow", "to breathe", "to inflate" or "to puff".
The earliest mention of the soufflé is attributed to French master cook Vincent La Chapelle, in the early eighteenth century. The development and popularization of the soufflé is usually traced to French chef Marie-Antoine Carême in the early nineteenth century.
Vincent La Chapelle (1690 or 1703 – 14th of July 1745 in Apeldoorn) was a French master cook who is known to have worked for Phillip Dormer Stanhope (4th Earl of Chesterfield), William IV, Prince of Orange, John V of Portugal, and Madame de Pompadour, the favourite mistress of Louis XV of France.