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Omelet Souffle

A light, airy omelette made with whipped egg whites and lemon zest, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Omelet 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.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

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

  3. Beat the egg yolks and powdered sugar until creamy, then add the lemon zest and juice.

  4. Gently fold the whipped egg whites into the yolk mixture without stirring.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a lightly oiled pudding dish.

  2. Optionally, shape part of the mixture into a mound on a flat dish and pipe the rest on top.

  3. Sprinkle with sugar and bake until set.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Egg whites
Whipped into stiff peaks, they trap air and give the soufflé its light, risen structure.
Egg yolks
Enrich the batter with richness and help it set into a tender, custard-like texture.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and dissolves easily into the yolks for a smooth base.
Lemon zest
Adds aromatic lemon oil that brightens the flavour of the batter.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and sharpens the lemon flavour.

The step that matters

Gently fold the whipped egg whites into the yolk mixture. Whipped egg whites hold air in a fragile foam. Stirring or overmixing deflates it, so the soufflé rises less and turns dense. Fold with a light, sweeping motion to keep the air in.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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