Skip to main content
Dessert

Sweet Omelettes

A lightly sweetened egg dish cooked in butter, optionally topped with jam and kirsch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and apricot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,098 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Sweet Omelettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Separate the egg yolks and whites into two bowls.

  2. Mix the yolks with two forks.

  3. Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  4. Add sugar and lemon juice to the yolks and mix well.

Cook

  1. Melt butter in a 12-inch pan, ensuring it covers the bottom evenly.

  2. When the butter stops bubbling, quickly combine the yolks with the whipped whites.

  3. Pour the mixture into the pan and smooth it out.

  4. Cook on low heat for 2 minutes without stirring.

  5. Detach the edges with a knife and fold the omelette when the bottom is set.

Serve

  1. Transfer to a sugar-dusted dish and sprinkle more sugar on top.

  2. For a confiture omelette, melt jam with kirsch and pour over the omelette just 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. Lemon + apricottop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,098 recipes

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

  2. Butter + apricottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,458 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + buttertop 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. Sugar + buttertop 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
Whites trap air for lift, and yolks set to give the omelette its structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps stabilise the whipped whites.
Butter
Coats the pan to prevent sticking and adds richness and browning.
Apricot or strawberry jam
Adds sweetness and fruity flavour in the optional confiture topping.

The step that matters

Cook on low heat without stirring. Low heat lets the bottom set gently without scorching, while stirring would break the delicate air in the whipped whites and deflate the omelette.

Swap the apricot

The recipe marks apricot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, lemon, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Apricotthe original

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

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes