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Dessert

Apple Charlotte

A baked apple dessert with bread and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Apple Charlotte

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the apples

  1. Peel, core, and slice the apples.

  2. Stew the apples with sugar, butter, lemon peel, cinnamon, and water until thick.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a mold with bread dipped in clarified butter.

  2. Fill the mold with the apple mixture and cover with more bread dipped in clarified butter.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until pale brown.

Serve

  1. Turn out and serve.

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 + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Apple + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Provide the bulk of the filling, softening into a thick, sweet purée when stewed.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps thicken the stewed apples as they reduce.
Bread
Forms the golden, sturdy outer shell that holds the filling in shape.
Clarified butter
Coats the bread so it browns evenly and crisps in the oven rather than soaking up moisture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the stewed apple filling.

The step that matters

Stew the apples until thick. If the apples stay too wet, the filling will leak and soak the bread, leaving the charlotte soggy rather than holding its shape when turned out. Cooking off the excess liquid gives a filling that sets firm.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, butter, cinnamon, 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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