Sweet Omelet
4 eggs 4 teaspoons powdered sugar 4 tablespoons milk 1/2 tablespoon butter 4 tablespoons marmalade or jelly Make the same as plain omelet, adding the marmalade or jelly just before the omelet is folded over. Sprinkle with sugar and serve garnished with preserved cherries or candied fruit.
A sweet folded omelet in the French style, written for a cook who already knows the book's plain omelet. The whole thing takes about three minutes at the stove, so have the marmalade measured and slightly warmed before the eggs go in.
- The hinge: pull it earlySet the omelet over moderate heat and stop cooking while the surface is still glossy and barely set. Sugar and fruit preserve add moisture but no protection, and an egg base cooked to dryness will be tough and weeping by the time it reaches the plate.
- "Powdered sugar"In books of this period the term usually means finely ground sugar, close to what is now sold as superfine or caster sugar, rather than the cornstarch-cut confectioners' sugar in a modern box. Either works; confectioners' sugar dissolves faster in the finishing sprinkle.
- Warm the fillingCold jelly straight from the jar chills the centre and refuses to spread. Loosen 4 tablespoons in a small pan or briefly in the microwave until it is just pourable.
- Pan and butterHalf a tablespoon of butter is right for an 8-inch nonstick or well-seasoned pan. In anything larger the eggs spread thin and set before they can be folded.
- Milk in the eggsFour tablespoons is roughly a tablespoon per egg, which is on the generous side by current practice; it gives a softer, more custardy omelet that is easier to tear when folding. Reduce to two tablespoons for a firmer sheet.
- Finishing the sugarSprinkle the sugar on after plating. If you want it caramelized, a few seconds under a very hot broiler will do it, but the omelet keeps cooking the whole time it sits under the element.
- YieldFour eggs make one omelet serving two, or two small omelets cooked in succession. Cooking them one at a time gives a better fold.
- GarnishPreserved cherries and candied fruit were common store-cupboard items when this book was written; glacé cherries or drained maraschinos stand in, and a few fresh berries are less cloying against a jelly filling.
Sweet omelets appear in American and English cookbooks from the mid-nineteenth century onward, alongside the French omelette aux confitures, and they sat comfortably in an era when the line between an egg dish and a dessert was drawn differently than it is now — an omelet like this could close a light supper or appear at a late breakfast. The terse cross-reference here — "make the same as plain omelet" — assumes the base recipe is within arm's reach.