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Dessert

Omelet Souffle

A light, airy egg-based dessert baked in a tin, finished with powdered sugar.

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 ↓

Omelet Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA very quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. Add sugar, lemon rind, and vanilla to the yolks; beat for 10 minutes.

  2. Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks; fold into the yolk mixture and beat for another 10 minutes.

  3. Butter a plain tin mold and pour in the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 12 minutes.

  2. Sift sugar over the top 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 + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Lemon + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 and set into the light, airy structure of the soufflé.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites.
Butter
Greasing the mold keeps the soufflé from sticking so it can rise and release cleanly.

The step that matters

Folding the whites into the yolk mixture. Whites hold air only while whipped; folding gently keeps that air in the batter. Stirring or deflating the mixture too much makes the soufflé rise poorly and turn dense.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, vanilla, 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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