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Dessert

Sweet Omelette

A sweet omelette made with sugar, sherry, eggs, butter, jam, and castor sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,505 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Sweet Omelette

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the sherry syrup

  1. Combine the sugar and sherry in an earthenware pot.

  2. Boil the mixture for 3 minutes.

  3. Pour the hot mixture into a basin to cool.

Make the omelette

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

  2. Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  3. Fold the whipped whites into the yolk mixture.

  4. Melt the butter in a clean omelette pan.

  5. Pour the egg mixture into the pan and cook for about 2 minutes.

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

Fill and serve

  1. Slide the omelette onto a hot dish, spread hot jam in the center, and fold it over.

  2. Sprinkle with castor sugar 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. Sherry + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + sherrytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they give the omelette its light, airy structure.
Egg yolks
Enrich the batter and add richness and a creamy texture when beaten.
Sugar
Sweetens the omelette and helps the sherry mixture bind with the eggs.
Butter
Greases the pan and adds richness and browning to the omelette base.

The step that matters

Folding the whipped whites into the yolk mixture. Folding gently keeps air trapped in the whites; stirring or beating them in deflates the foam, so the omelette bakes up flat and dense instead of light.

“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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