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Dessert

Omelette Souffle

A sweet, fluffy omelette soufflé made with eggs, sugar, butter, rice flour, and optional vanilla, orange, or lemon flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Omelette 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. Separate the yolks from the whites of the eggs.

  2. Add the yolks to the sugar, rice-flour, and your choice of flavouring, then stir well.

  3. Whip the egg whites until stiff and gently fold them into the yolk mixture.

Cook and shape

  1. Melt the butter in a small frying pan over medium heat until it bubbles.

  2. Pour the batter into the pan and cook until the omelet is set, about 4 minutes.

  3. Turn the edges over to shape it oval, then transfer to a buttered silver dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 12 to 15 minutes.

  2. Sprinkle powdered sugar over the soufflé and serve immediately.

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 + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  2. Vanilla + ricetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,352 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Vanilla + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vanilla + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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.
Pounded sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites.
Butter
Fats the pan so the batter cooks without sticking and adds richness.
Rice-flour
Adds light body to the yolk mixture so it holds its shape when baked.

The step that matters

Folding the whites into the yolk mixture. Whites hold air only when whipped to stiff peaks and folded gently. Overmixing or deflating them loses the air that makes the soufflé rise.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Raisinfits about as well
  2. Vanillathe original
  3. Coconutfits less well
  4. Figfits less well

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