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Omelet Souffle

A light, airy omelet made by folding beaten egg whites into a yolk mixture and baking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Omelet Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Break 6 eggs into separate cups.

  2. Beat 4 yolks and mix with flour, powdered sugar, and salt.

  3. Flavor with lemon extract or your choice of flavoring.

Make the batter

  1. Whisk the whites of the remaining 2 eggs to a firm froth.

  2. Gently fold the egg whites into the yolk mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into a greased pan.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until well-risen and lightly browned.

  2. Serve on a warm dish, dust with powdered sugar.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 to lift the soufflé, while yolks add richness and set structure as it bakes.
Flour
Gives the yolk mixture body so the batter holds its shape after folding.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and dissolves easily into the yolks, adding a light browning as it bakes.

The step that matters

Gently fold the egg whites into the yolk mixture. Whites are full of trapped air, and folding gently keeps that air in. Stirring or deflating the foam makes the soufflé rise less and turn dense.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Figfits about as well

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