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Dessert

Friars’ Omelette

A baked apple and egg mixture coated with bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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’ Omelette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil the apples until soft.

  2. Stir in the butter and sugar to taste.

  3. Let the mixture cool.

  4. Add the beaten eggs and mix well.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a deep baking dish.

  2. Coat the bottom and sides with bread crumbs.

  3. Pour the apple and egg mixture into the dish.

  4. Sprinkle more bread crumbs on top.

  5. Bake until set.

Serve

  1. Turn it out onto another dish.

  2. Grate sugar over it.

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

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

  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
Cooked to a soft pulp, they form the bulk and sweet, tart body of the omelette.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, moist texture to the apple mixture.
Eggs
Bind the apple mixture and set on baking to give it a firm, sliceable structure.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust on the base and top while helping the dish release cleanly.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs set when their proteins coagulate with heat. Underbaking leaves a loose, runny centre, while overbaking makes the eggs rubbery and dry.

Swap the apple

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

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

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