Skip to main content
Dessert

Apple Omelette

A sweet dish of stewed apples mixed with butter, sugar, and eggs, baked until brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Apple and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,790 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Apple Omelette

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Stew the apples and mash them finely.

  2. Add the butter and sugar to the mashed apples.

  3. Let the mixture cool, then add the beaten eggs.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until brown and serve warm.

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. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the bulk and natural sweetness and moisture of the filling.
Eggs
Bind the mashed apple mixture and help it set into a custard-like texture when baked.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown during baking.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a softer texture and flavour.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the beaten eggs. Hot mixture can start to scramble the eggs unevenly, so cooling it first helps the eggs blend smoothly and set into an even texture when baked.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, butter, nutmeg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Applethe original

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