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Friars Omelet

A baked apple and egg mixture topped with breadcrumbs and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Friars Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil or stew the apples until soft.

  2. Stir in the butter and sugar until combined.

  3. Let the mixture cool.

  4. Add the beaten eggs and lemon juice.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a baking dish.

  2. Sprinkle bread crumbs on the bottom and sides of the dish.

  3. Pour the apple mixture into the dish.

  4. Top with more bread crumbs.

  5. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

Serve

  1. Turn out onto a plate.

  2. Sprinkle with sugar.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Apple + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Cook down to a soft, moist base that forms the body of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a smooth, tender texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the apples caramelize slightly during baking.
Eggs
Set when baked, binding the apple mixture into a sliceable, custard-like omelet.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, absorbent layer that helps hold the moist filling together.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the eggs. Hot apple mixture can begin to scramble beaten eggs before baking, leading to a grainy texture instead of an even set.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raspberryfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

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

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