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Apple Omelette

A baked apple and egg mixture flavored with butter, sugar, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the apple base

  1. Stew the apples until soft and mash them until smooth while hot.

  2. Add butter, sugar, and nutmeg to the apples and mix well.

  3. Let the mixture cool completely.

Assemble and bake

  1. Once cool, add the beaten egg yolks and mix.

  2. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  3. Pour the mixture into a warmed and buttered deep baking dish.

  4. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until golden brown.

  5. Serve warm, not hot.

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. Nutmeg + rosetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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, smooth base that gives the omelette its body and fruity flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing flavour and a tender texture to the base.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and helps the top brown as the dish bakes.
Egg yolks
Enrich the mixture and add richness and binding to the custard-like base.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in, they add lightness and help the omelette rise and set in the oven.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. Egg whites hold air when beaten, which lifts the mixture while baking. Stirring them in vigorously knocks out that air, so the omelette bakes flat and dense instead of light.

Swap the apple

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

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

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