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Omelet Soufflé

A light, airy omelet soufflé flavored with orange‑flower water and sweetened with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Omelet Soufflé

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Separate the egg whites and yolks into two bowls.

  2. In a saucepan, combine orange-flower water and caster sugar; boil for 3 minutes.

  3. Pour the mixture into a cup to cool, then add the egg yolks and beat until creamy.

Whip and fold

  1. Whip the egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff peaks form.

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

Cook and serve

  1. Heat butter in a frying pan, then pour in the egg mixture.

  2. Cook on low heat for 2.5 minutes, then transfer to a 400°F (200°C) oven for 3-4 minutes.

  3. Melt the jam, spread it on the soufflé, and fold it like a sandwich.

  4. Sprinkle with white 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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Orange + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Orange and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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 and set into the light, airy structure of the soufflé.
Caster sugar
Sweetens the base and helps stabilise the yolk mixture when beaten.
Butter
Fats the pan and browns the underside of the omelette for flavour.
Jam
Adds sweetness and fruity flavour as a filling.

The step that matters

Folding the whites into the yolk mixture. Overmixing deflates the whipped egg whites, losing the air that makes the soufflé rise. Fold gently with a spatula so the batter stays light.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Orangethe original

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