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Friar's Omelet. Gateau De Pommes Renverse
A kind of timbale of apple custard baked with a casing of bread crumbs. 1 quart of dry stewed apples, or baked apple pulp. 6 ounces of sugar. 4 ounces of butter. 1/2 cupful of cream. 6 eggs. Nutmeg and cinnamon. Bread crumbs, about a quart. Custard for sauce.
Mash the drained apples through a colander, add the butter to it while warm, then the sugar and flavor, and the eggs and cream beaten together. Spread some softened butter all over the inside of a mould or pudding pan and press on all the fine grated bread crumbs that can be made to stick. Pour in the apple mixture; cover the top with crumbs pressed in; moisten the top with melted butter and bake brown, and well set.
Turn the apple cake carefully upside down out of the mould and serve it either with whipped cream flavored with wine and sugar, (a la chantilly) or with diluted red fruit jelly (sauce aux fruits).
A baked apple custard turned out of a crumb-lined mould, closer to a charlotte than to an omelet. The recipe gives no oven temperature or time, so the two things worth getting right are the moisture level of the apple and the bake.
- Oven and timing"Bake brown, and well set" is the whole instruction; no temperature, time or mould size is given. A moderate oven (in the region of 350F) and something around an hour will suit a mould of this quantity: the centre should be set with only the faintest wobble and an inserted knife come out clean. The browned crumb casing is what helps the cake hold together when inverted.
- The apple must be dryThis is the hinge. "Dry stewed apples" means apple cooked down until it mounds on a spoon, not applesauce from a jar. Wet pulp will weep into the crumb lining, and the cake will collapse or stick when turned out. A quart of pulp is about 3 lb of apples before cooking.
- Adding the butter warmThe butter goes into the apple while the apple is still warm enough to melt it. Let the mixture cool before the beaten eggs and cream go in, or the eggs may curdle in the bowl.
- CrumbsFine dry grated crumbs from stale white bread rather than coarse commercial dried crumbs. Spread softened butter over the inside of the mould, as the recipe directs, and press crumbs on until no metal shows.
- MeasuresA cupful is 8 fl oz. Six ounces of sugar is a scant cup by volume; four ounces of butter is one stick. "About a quart" of crumbs is loosely packed and approximate by design: use what the mould will take.
- Turning outLet the baked cake stand 10 to 15 minutes so the custard firms, then invert onto a warm platter. Any longer and the steam trapped against the crumbs softens them.
- The sauces"Custard for sauce" in the ingredient list and the whipped cream or jelly at the end are alternatives, not all three at once. Cream a la chantilly here is whipped cream flavoured with sugar and wine, as the recipe says; sauce aux fruits is red fruit jelly warmed and thinned with a little water.
- YieldThe recipe does not specify a mould size; the quantities should give roughly eight to ten servings. It is good cold, though the crumb casing loses its crispness overnight.
The English name is the older of the two beside it: "friar's omelet" appears in British and American cookbooks through the nineteenth century for a baked dish of apple, egg and butter, and nothing in it is fried or folded. Gateau de pommes renverse describes the method -- an apple cake baked in a lined mould and turned upside down, in the same family as the crumb- or bread-lined charlottes. The two sauce options, sweetened whipped cream or thinned red jelly, are both things a pastry department would be likely to have in reserve.