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Omelet Souffle

A light, airy omelet soufflé flavored with orange‑flower water and sweetened with jam and 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 Souffle

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 castor sugar; boil for 3 minutes.

  3. Pour the mixture into a cup to cool.

  4. Add the egg yolks to the cooled mixture and beat until creamy.

Make the soufflé

  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.

  3. Heat butter in a frying pan.

  4. Pour the egg mixture into the pan.

  5. Cook on low heat for about 2.5 minutes.

  6. Transfer the pan to a preheated oven at 400 °F (200 °C) and bake for 3–4 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Melt the jam.

  2. Remove the soufflé from the oven.

  3. Turn the soufflé onto a hot dish.

  4. Spread the melted jam on top of the soufflé.

  5. Fold the soufflé like a sandwich.

  6. 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 for lift, while yolks add richness and set the structure.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the base and helps stabilise the yolk mixture for a smooth, creamy texture.
Butter
Greases the pan and adds richness and browning to the base of the soufflé.
Jam
Adds sweetness and fruity flavour on top of the finished soufflé.

The step that matters

Folding the whipped egg whites into the yolk mixture. Folding gently keeps the air bubbles in the whites intact. Stirring or deflating them makes the soufflé heavy and prevents it from rising well.

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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