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Dessert

Sweet Omelet

A sweet omelet made with eggs, butter, sugar, lemon rind, cream, and lemon juice, fried into an oval shape.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Sweet Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs well.

  2. Add the grated rind of the lemon, melted butter, cream, and sugar.

  3. Before frying, add the lemon juice and the beaten egg whites.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry in an oval shape to fit the dish.

  2. Sift sugar over before serving.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while beaten whites lighten it and help the omelette rise.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a tender texture and rich flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the omelette and helps it brown lightly in the pan.
Lemon
Rind adds aroma and juice adds acidity that brightens the sweet flavour.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, producing a softer, more tender omelette.

The step that matters

Add the beaten egg whites before frying. Whites hold air only when beaten stiff and folded in gently; deflating them loses the lift that makes the omelette light, so add them just before frying.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits about as well
  3. Raspberryfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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