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Dessert

Crepes De Pommes

A French dessert of batter‑filled apple crêpes served with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,501 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Crepes De Pommes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, cream, nutmeg, brandy, salt, sugar, and flour until smooth.

  2. If using, steep the vanilla bean in the batter for 1 hour, then remove it.

  3. Core and finely chop the baking apples, then mix them into the batter.

Cook and serve

  1. In a hot frying pan, melt some butter and drop spoonfuls of the batter into the pan.

  2. Cook until golden, then remove and serve with a dusting of white 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. Vanilla + appletop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,501 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Nutmeg + vanillatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the crêpes as they cook.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the crêpes together.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture to the batter.
Baking apples
Add moisture and sweetness, and soften as the crêpes cook.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour to the batter.

The step that matters

Cook until golden. The pan must be hot enough for the batter to set quickly. A cool pan lets the crêpes spread and absorb butter, making them greasy and pale rather than golden.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cream, nutmeg, brandy, sugar, flour, vanilla):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, nutmeg, brandy, sugar, flour, vanilla. 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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