Corn Flake Omelet

Not bad for a recipe from a 94-year-old cereal ad.

When choosing which vintage recipe to highlight next, I usually default to the 1960s and '70s—the era of kitschy cocktail parties and canned goods turned gourmet. For this week's newsletter, I'm pulling from an issue of American Cookery published by The Boston Cooking School Magazine Co. in 1930. The Boston Cooking School gained a reputation for its detailed, reliable recipes with the release of its first cookbook in the late 19th century. The magazine I got my hands on is filled with dishes that live up to the institution's legacy, but I found myself equally intrigued by the retro advertisements.

The recipe below is exactly what it sounds like. Corn Flakes was the original cereal the Kellogg brothers used to launch their breakfast empire, so it had already been around for several decades by the time this issue was published. Based on the ad copy, it sounds like the company feared consumers had already gotten bored of eating cereal with milk. To keep people coming back for more, they offered an alternative serving suggestion: "120,000 people every day enjoy a bowl of crisp Kellogg's Corn Flakes and milk or cream ... And now here's another way to enjoy the crunchy crispness of Kellogg's Corn Flakes. In a fluffy delicious omelet!"

As I mentioned in my post on the Campbell's cookbook Cooking With Soup, I'm fascinated by recipes from brands—especially when they're developed around products that are ready-to-eat to begin with. This corn flake omelet sounded especially promising. It reminded me of the potato chip omelet Sydney makes on The Bear—and though I haven't recreated that one for myself yet, it's been haunting my dreams since I saw it.

Because there are only two ingredients, I decided to test this recipe at home. Maybe my omelet experience is lacking, but this was my first time seeing instructions to beat the yolks and whites separately before folding them back together. I'm guessing the idea is to get the whites nice and fluffy without over-beating the yolks? It's funny this recipe has you put so much effort into the quality of the omelet while also calling for 1 cup of corn flakes per egg. I know the point is to sell more cereal, but this was hard for me to visualize. The one cup I added to my two eggs already looked like a lot, so I stopped there.

The verdict? Would make again! It ended up leaning more French toast than omelet, which I really enjoyed. I’m sure doubling the amount of cereal would push it even further that way. It wasn’t as crunchy as the ad promised—the egg-coated cereal was soft by the time the omelet hit my plate—so I garnished it with some additional flakes from the box. Because the base recipe is so simple it would be easy to tweak with additional ingredients that take it in either a sweet or savory direction.

Playing with the type of cereal could be fun, too. Now I’m fascinating about an omelet/french toast situation made with Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Let me know which cereal you would use instead!

Corn Flake Omelet

Beat four eggs, whites and yolks separately. To the yolks add 1/2 teaspoonful salt and a dash of pepper and 3 tablespoonfuls of water. Beat well. Folk yolks into whites and add about 4 cups Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, folding them into egg mixture. Cook until golden brown. Fold and serve hot with broiled bacon and tart jelly.