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 ↓
Friae'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 apple mixture
Boil the apples until soft, then mash them for sauce.
Stir in the butter and sugar until well combined.
Let the mixture cool, then add the beaten eggs and cream.
Bake
Butter a baking dish and coat the bottom and sides with bread crumbs.
Pour the apple mixture into the dish and sprinkle currants on top.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.
Serve
Turn the omelet onto a platter and sift sugar over it.
Serve with sugar and cream or boiled custard.
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.
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Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
-
Apple + curranttop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,918 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
-
Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Apples
- Cooked and mashed to form the soft, sweet body of the custard.
- Eggs
- Set when baked, binding the apple mixture into a firm custard.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, giving a smoother, more tender texture.
- Cream
- Adds moisture and richness, softening the set custard.
The step that matters
Letting the mixture cool before adding the eggs. Adding beaten eggs to a hot mixture can scramble them, leaving lumps instead of a smooth custard that sets evenly in the oven.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, butter, sugar, egg, cream, bread):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Pearfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against apple, butter, sugar, egg, cream, 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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