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Dessert

Omelet

A baked apple bread made with boiled apples, breadcrumbs, sugar, butter, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,706 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Omelet

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the apples

  1. Boil the apples until soft, as for apple sauce.

  2. Mix in the breadcrumbs, sugar, and butter when the apples are cool.

  3. Add the beaten eggs and mix well.

Assemble and bake

  1. Grease a pudding dish and layer breadcrumbs an inch thick at the bottom. Press breadcrumbs around the sides of the dish.

  2. Pour in the apple mixture and sprinkle more breadcrumbs on top.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until done.

Serve

  1. Turn out onto a dish and 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. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 soft, moist base that gives the bread its body and flavour.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb the apple moisture and form the bready layers that hold the dish together.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, softening the crumb and improving flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the dish and aids browning on the surface during baking.

The step that matters

Baking until done. Baking until done matters because the eggs must set fully; underbaking leaves the apple mixture wet and loose, while the breadcrumbs need time to dry and firm.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, 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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