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Dessert

Sweet Omelet Souffle

A sweet, fluffy omelet souffle made with eggs, milk, sugar, and butter, baked until light yellow.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Sweet 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.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg whites and yolks separately.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the milk, sugar, and salt; place it in a pan of boiling water.

  3. Mix the corn starch with a little cold milk and stir until it boils for 3 minutes.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the butter and flavoring.

  5. When the milk mixture is not scalding hot, stir in the beaten yolks.

Fold and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites with 1 tablespoon of sugar until stiff, then quickly fold them into the mixture.

  2. Add the baking powder and pour into a well-buttered pan.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until light yellow brown.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  4. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped whites give the souffle its airy structure, while the yolks enrich the custard.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that the eggs and starch set into.
Corn starch
Thickens the hot milk so the custard holds its body under the folded whites.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps stabilize the beaten egg whites.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that softens the crumb and carries flavor.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the souffle rises and lightens in the oven.

The step that matters

Stir in the yolks only when the milk is no longer scalding hot. Hot liquid cooks egg yolks on contact, causing lumps and scrambled bits. Letting the mixture cool slightly lets the yolks blend smoothly and thicken gently.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, corn, butter, 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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