Why it works: Apple and quince work together. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 506 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓
Apple Charlotte
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the mold
Cut the bread into round slices, about 1 inch wide, to fit the height of the mold.
Grease the mold thickly with butter and line it evenly with the bread.
Make the filling
Cut the apples into smaller pieces.
Add two handfuls of sugar to the apples.
Melt three tablespoons of butter in a saucepan.
Add the apples to the melted butter and toss until cooked but not broken.
Stir in four tablespoons of marmalade.
Bake and serve
Pour the mixture into the mold, filling it completely.
Cover the top with a thin slice of buttered bread.
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 20 minutes until the bread is golden.
Let it cool slightly.
Turn it out onto a platter.
Sprinkle with sugar.
Serve with caramel or a butter-and-sugar sauce.
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.
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Apple + quincetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together506 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Bread + appletop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,790 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,706 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Bread + quincetop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together36 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Bread
- Forms the crisp golden shell that holds the soft fruit filling in shape.
- Butter
- Coats the mold and bread, promoting browning and adding richness.
- Tart apples
- Provide the main fruit body and tartness that balances the sweetness.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the apples caramelize slightly during cooking.
- Quince or apricot marmalade
- Adds concentrated fruit flavour and pectin that helps the filling hold together.
The step that matters
Toss the apples until cooked but not broken. Apples that are overcooked turn to mush and release excess water, making the filling soggy and unable to hold its shape when turned out.
Swap the quince
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, apple, sugar, butter):
- Figfits better
- Pearfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Quincethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, apple, sugar, butter. 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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