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Omelet Souffle

A baked omelet souffle made with sugar, vanilla, flour, eggs, and served with jam.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg yolks and sugar with a wooden spoon for 10 minutes.

  2. Stir in the flour and vanilla essence.

  3. Whisk the egg whites to a stiff froth and gently fold them into the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Grease an omelet pan well and pour the mixture into it.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 330°F (165°C) for about 10 minutes.

  3. If the top is not brown enough, place the souffle under the grill for 1-2 minutes.

  4. Spread jam on one half of the souffle and fold the other half over.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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
Whisked to a stiff froth, they trap air and give the soufflé its light, risen structure.
Egg yolks
Beaten with sugar, they add richness and help set the soufflé's structure as it cooks.
Flour
Provides structure, helping the batter hold its shape once baked.
Castor sugar
Beaten with the yolks, it sweetens the batter and helps stabilise the foam.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites must be whisked to a stiff froth and folded gently so the air is kept. Overmixing deflates the foam, and the soufflé then bakes flat and dense instead of rising.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillathe original
  3. Lemonfits less well
  4. Figfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, egg. 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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