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Friar's Omelet
Mrs. DeForest, Boil a dozen apples, as for sauce; stir in one-fourth pound of butter, ditto white sugar; when cold, add four well beaten eggs and a few spoons of cream; put it into a baking dish, well buttered, and thickly strewn with bread crumbs on the bottom and sides; strew currants over the top. Bake forty-five minutes; turn on a platter, and sift sugar over it. Serve with sugar and cream, or a boiled custard ; the latter is much the nicer.
A baked apple pudding in the charlotte family, crumb-lined and turned out. The whole thing hinges on temperature at one point in the method.
- Let the apple cool before the eggs go inThe instruction "when cold" is not optional politeness. Warm apple pulp will scramble four beaten eggs on contact and the pudding sets grainy instead of smooth.
- QuantitiesA dozen apples cooked down to sauce means roughly 4 lb of fruit, giving about 4 to 5 cups of thick pulp. A quarter pound each of butter and sugar is 1/2 cup butter and a scant 1/2 cup granulated sugar. "A few spoons of cream" is loose; 3 to 4 tablespoons suits the texture.
- Which applesUse a variety that breaks down: Bramley, McIntosh, Cortland, Golden Delicious. Cook them uncovered until quite thick, since a wet pulp will not set and will not turn out cleanly.
- OvenThe receipt gives no temperature. A moderate oven, taken today as about 350F, is the usual equivalent. Forty-five minutes is about right for a 2-quart dish; the centre should be set and register around 170F.
- CurrantsThese are dried Zante currants, the small raisins, not fresh redcurrants. Scatter about 1/3 cup. Plumping them in hot water for ten minutes keeps them from scorching on top.
- The crumb liningButter the dish heavily and press dry bread crumbs onto the base and sides in a thick coat, as directed. The crumb coat is what lets the pudding release when it is inverted, so any bare patch will stick.
- Turning outLet it stand 10 minutes before inverting, long enough to firm but not so long that the butter congeals against the dish. Sift confectioners' or superfine sugar over the top once it is on the platter.
- Boiled custardThe preferred sauce is a stirred custard in the crème anglaise sense: yolks, sugar and scalded milk cooked to about 175F over low heat, never actually boiled.
- YieldServes 6 to 8.
Friar's omelet is an English baked apple pudding that turns up in nineteenth-century cookery books, closely related to apple charlotte and to the whole family of dishes built on buttered bread or crumbs and stewed fruit. The "omelet" of the name refers only to the beaten eggs bound into the apple; there is no folding, no pan, and nothing that a modern cook would recognise as an omelette. The monastic reference is traditional rather than documented, and is usually explained as a nod to a plain meatless dish. Its appearance here, credited to Mrs. DeForest, is typical of The Home Cook Book, a Toronto community compilation in which each receipt carries a contributor's name. The suggestion of boiled custard over cream marks it as a company dessert rather than an everyday use for windfall apples.