Omelet

Sweet Omelet with Berries

April  3, 2014

Each Thursday, Emily Vikre (a.k.a fiveandspice) will be sharing a new way to love breakfast -- because breakfast isn't just the most important meal of the day. It's also the most awesome.

Today: So many sweet things are egg-based -- why can't omelets join the party? 

Sweet omelet from Food52

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One of my best friends married a man from Finland, and she moved there for several years to teach preschool. Besides the stories of the wonders of the Finnish educational system (hands-on learning! Hours outside everyday! Why am I not a preschooler in Finland?!), I received many reports from her about the foods they were eating. Most of them sounded delicious -- rye pastries filled with rice, cardamom rolls with melted butter, cardamom donuts with a name that sounds like monkey, savory sausages for grilling in the woods (when I went to visit her, I tried them all, and I can attest they were, in fact, delicious). But, when she told me about eating omelets filled with jam, I thought, “An omelet with jam? Yuck. This confirms my suspicion that Finns are the oddest of the Nordic peoples.”

I wished to stay self-satisfiedly biased against the idea of a sweet omelet, except the idea kept niggling at me until I finally had to admit that it wasn’t as odd as it had first sounded. So many sweet things are egg based -- crepes, popovers, Dutch babies, soufflés, custard -- and making a sweet omelet was only a baby step away from all those. So I decided to give it a chance. And, while my favorite omelets will remain those that include cheese and vegetables, sweet omelets with jam or fruit have now earned a place in my breakfast lineup.

I like to make a two-egg omelet -- generous enough to be filling, but not so over-the-top for the morning as a three-egg omelet is. I also like to whisk one of the whites to a foam and fold it in, so the omelet becomes lighter, but not fully so airy as a soufflé (but I whisk in dishwasher-safe bowls so I don’t have to clean the extra bowl!). Raid your freezer for any combination of frozen berries you have, and simmer them briefly with sugar or honey to make a filling that doubles as a sauce. As you might expect, the omelet makes a sweet, eggy backdrop for the syrupy berries, or you can use sliced fruit or jam -- like the Finns. It’s yummy. (But, I still think the Finns are probably the oddest of the Nordic peoples.) 

Sweet omelet from Food52 

Sweet Omelet with Berries 

Serves 1

About 2/3 cup of mixed frozen berries
1/2 tablespoon honey or sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons plus a pinch of sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 tablespoon butter
A little cream or crème fraiche for finishing, optional

See the full recipe (and save and print it) here. 

Photos by Emily Vikre

See what other Food52 readers are saying.

  • Carrie
    Carrie
  • Alice Gardner
    Alice Gardner
  • Laura Guill
    Laura Guill
  • Greenstuff
    Greenstuff
  • Katie Okamoto
    Katie Okamoto
I like to say I'm a lazy iron chef (I just cook with what I have around), renegade nutritionist, food policy wonk, and inveterate butter and cream enthusiast! My husband and I own a craft distillery in Northern Minnesota called Vikre Distillery (www.vikredistillery.com), where I claimed the title, "arbiter of taste." I also have a doctorate in food policy, for which I studied the changes in diet and health of new immigrants after they come to the United States. I myself am a Norwegian-American dual citizen. So I have a lot of Scandinavian pride, which especially shines through in my cooking on special holidays. Beyond loving all facets of food, I'm a Renaissance woman (translation: bad at focusing), dabbling in a variety of artistic and scientific endeavors.

13 Comments

Carrie April 6, 2014
Maybe that is because they are not Nordic. Finns, Estonians and Hungarians belong to a more ancient group along with Hungarian, Estonians and Basque, among others according to my sources
 
Carrie April 6, 2014
Oops, should have edited that better.


 
fiveandspice April 6, 2014
I know! It is always so crazy to me that the Finnish language is pretty much not related to any other language besides Estonian, and sort of Hungarian! However, Finns and other Nordic peoples alike would be quick to point out that Finns actually are Nordic, they're just not Scandinavian.
 
Alice G. April 6, 2014
I saw the title for this and thought "that's so weird" and now I am grinning ear to ear because I couldn't believe how good this was! I thought I was eating a crepe! Do take care when turning it over in the pan- I kinda panicked and tried the assertive pancake flip technique and wound up with a few egg foam puddles on my stove...
 
fiveandspice April 6, 2014
I have done the same thing when flipping - it's taken me a long time to learn not to panic while flipping things like omelets, crepes, or rosti. :)
 
Laura G. April 4, 2014
Perfect timing! I've been eating lots of these recently, since I finally got a copy of the Breakfast Book. Much like you, Marion Cunningham suggests the jam filling to go with a puffy omelet, and it's wonderful. I think my favorite filling so far has been apricot jam, but I think orange marmalade is supposed to be more classic.
 
fiveandspice April 6, 2014
Is there a version in The Breakfast Book?! I'll have to try it. I have the book, but I clearly haven't spent adequate time with it!
 
Greenstuff April 4, 2014
Actually jam omelets have been around for a long time, and they're not just eaten by Finns. I remember them from my childhood in the 1950s, and the New York Times wrote about them in 1914! http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=FA061FF7385916738DDDA10894D9415B848DF1D3
 
fiveandspice April 6, 2014
Yeah, I have seen a wide variety of jam omelets! I guess I think of them as Finnish because that's how I learned of them!
 
Katie O. April 4, 2014
I am definitely making this! As a kid, I spent a couple of years insisting on eating scrambled eggs with generous salt and a dollop of grape jelly. I thought those years were behind me but I will have to reconsider!
 
fiveandspice April 6, 2014
Definitely reconsider. :)
 
Lavender April 3, 2014
This recipe looks so great! I can't wait to try it! Finns make great combinations, like chocolate and salmiakki, yum!
 
fiveandspice April 6, 2014
Yes they do!