No. 3057

Celestine Omelet with Whipped Cream

Omelette Celestine a la Creme Fouettee

Break three eggs in a bowl and add to them a pinch of salt and a coffeespoonful of sugar; beat the whole well and run it through a sieve. Butter the bottom of a medium-sized frying pan with clarified butter, heat and pour it in the preparation, spreading it over the entire surface so as to obtain a mellow omelet. Put in a vessel two spoonfuls of currant jelly and dilute it with double its quantity of sweetened whipped cream, then incorporate into this two crushed macaroons; lay this cream in the center of the omelet, raise the edges to inclose it well, and invert it on a dish. Powder over with powdered sugar, and glaze with a red-hot iron. Dress on each side a spoonful of whipped cream mixed with currant jelly and crushed macaroons.

← No. 3056 Small Celestine Omelets Hot Entremets — Puddings, Fritters & Soufflés No. 3058 Frangipane Omelet →

For the Modern Kitchen

A three-egg sweet omelet folded around jellied whipped cream, glazed with sugar. It comes together in under ten minutes, so have the filling made and the pan hot before the eggs go anywhere near it.

The hinge: keep it mellowRanhofer's "mellow omelet" means barely set — soft and creamy on top, no browning underneath. Once the eggs firm up they will crack when you fold them around the cream, and the filling will weep out.
Archaic measuresA coffeespoonful is a small spoon measure, probably somewhere between half a teaspoon and a teaspoon; the term is used loosely. "Two spoonfuls" of jelly here most likely means tablespoons, giving roughly 2 tablespoons of jelly to 4 tablespoons of whipped cream.
Straining the eggsPassing the beaten eggs through a sieve is not fussiness — it removes the chalazae and any unbroken albumen so the omelet sets in one smooth sheet. Worth doing.
Clarified butterSpecified because the milk solids in whole butter scorch and speckle a pale sweet omelet. Ghee is a close substitute, though its longer cooking gives it a nuttier flavour.
MacaroonsThese are crisp almond macaroons — the small dry Italian-style amaretti sort — not the soft coconut kind and not French macaron shells. They are there for crunch and almond flavour; crush them coarsely and fold them in at the last moment so they do not dissolve.
The red-hot ironA salamander iron, heated in the fire and passed above the sugar to caramelize it. A kitchen blowtorch does the same job; a broiler set very high, with the dish close to the element for under a minute, is the next best thing. Watch it constantly, since the cream on the plate will collapse under sustained heat.
Pan sizeThree eggs want an 8-inch pan. Larger and the omelet spreads too thin to fold; smaller and it sets too thick to stay mellow.
YieldOne generous serving, or two modest ones if the omelet is cut across. Assemble and glaze at the table's pace — it does not hold.

A Little History

This comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous compendium of the cooking he oversaw for some thirty years at Delmonico's in New York, and it sits in the chapter of hot entremets — the sweet course served warm, before or instead of iced desserts. Sweet omelets were standard in nineteenth-century French service and Ranhofer gives a long run of them: with jam, with frangipane, with rum, soufflé'd. The name Célestine attaches to several unrelated preparations in classical cookery, most familiarly a consommé garnished with shredded pancake, and its origin is generally traced to a personal name rather than to any single dish; here it simply denotes the currant-jelly and macaroon filling. The finish is pure restaurant technique of the period — powdered sugar caramelized with a salamander, the iron heated in the coal range and held over the plate, which is how glazing was done before the blowtorch reached the pastry bench.