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Dessert

Omelette Soufflee En Surprise

A Genoise pastry filled with a sweet egg white soufflé and chilled cream, garnished with angelica and glace cherries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and angelica match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 170 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Omelette Soufflee En Surprise

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Trim the Genoise pastry to an oval or round shape, scoop out the center, and fix the pastry on a dish.

Make the filling

  1. Cream the egg yolk with 1.5 oz of sugar and add a pinch of salt to the egg whites.

  2. Whisk the egg whites until stiff, then gradually fold them into the creamed egg yolk.

  3. Place well-frozen cream or water ice in the cavity of the Genoise.

  4. Cover completely with the egg mixture and smooth the surface.

Bake and serve

  1. Garnish with angelica strips and glace cherries, then dust with sugar.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 4 to 5 minutes.

  3. 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. Vanilla + angelicatop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together170 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Vanilla + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Cream + angelicatop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together237 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiffness, they trap air and set into a light, airy topping when baked.
Egg yolk
Enriches the mixture, adding richness, color and body to the topping.
Genoise pastry
Provides a sponge base and shell that holds the frozen filling.
Fine castor sugar
Sweetens the mixture and helps stabilize the whipped egg whites.

The step that matters

Place well-frozen cream or water ice in the cavity. The filling must be fully frozen before the egg mixture covers it. The baking is brief, so the cold centre stays frozen while the topping sets. If the filling is soft, it melts and leaks into the pastry.

Swap the angelica

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Angelicathe original
  4. Peppermintfits less well

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