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Dessert

Friar's Omelet

A baked apple custard with breadcrumbs, butter, lemon, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,551 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Friar's 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 apples

  1. Peel and chop the apples.

Make the apple mixture

  1. In a saucepan, stew the apples with sugar, butter, grated lemon rind, and lemon juice until smooth.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten egg.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a pie dish, layer half the breadcrumbs at the bottom.

  2. Pour the apple mixture over the breadcrumbs.

  3. Top with the remaining breadcrumbs and a few small pieces of butter.

  4. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 15 minutes.

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

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

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

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

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Break down into a smooth purée that gives the pudding its moist, sweet body.
Breadcrumbs
Soak up the apple mixture and egg, giving the pudding its soft, set structure.
Egg
Binds the apple mixture so it sets into a custard-like texture when baked.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the apple purée brown lightly in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for a tender texture and a more rounded flavour.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg in off the heat. Adding beaten egg to a very hot mixture can scramble it. Removing the pan from the heat first lets the egg blend in smoothly and set evenly during baking.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Applethe original

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