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Dessert

Sweet Omelet

A lightly browned sweet omelet made with eggs, cream, sugar, flour, cinnamon, and salt, served with extra sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,341 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sweet Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Beat the eggs well in a bowl.

  3. Add the flour, sugar, powdered cinnamon, cream, and salt to the eggs.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the mixture over low heat until lightly browned.

  2. Serve immediately with a little sugar sifted over the top.

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. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Set into the structure of the omelette as they cook, holding the mixture together.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the omelette tender rather than dry.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during frying.
Flour
Thickens the egg mixture slightly, giving it body so it holds together.
Powdered cinnamon
Adds warm aroma and flavour to the sweet omelette.

The step that matters

Fry over low heat until lightly browned. Eggs and sugar brown quickly and can scorch, and high heat cooks the outside before the centre sets. Low heat lets the eggs set gently while the surface browns evenly.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Jalapenofits about as well
  3. Cinnamonthe original
  4. Capersfits less well

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