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Dessert

Apple Charlotte

Apple Charlotte is a baked apple dessert with bread crumbs, butter, eggs, wine, spices, lemon peel, and brown sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Apple Charlotte

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine stewed apples and bread crumbs in equal quantities.

  3. Melt the butter and mix it into the apple and bread crumb mixture.

  4. Beat the eggs and stir them in just before baking.

Season and bake

  1. Add the wine, cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon peel, and brown sugar to the mixture.

  2. Stir everything together and pour into a baking dish.

  3. Bake for a long time until set and golden.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Stewed apples
Provide the main fruit body and moisture for the filling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices and give the filling body so it holds its shape.
Eggs
Set when baked, binding the filling into a soft, sliceable custard-like texture.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the crumbs brown and taste savoury-sweet.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top turn golden during baking.

The step that matters

Stirring in the eggs just before baking. Eggs begin to set as soon as they are mixed in, so holding them until right before baking keeps the batter from thickening too early and ensures an even set in the oven.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, egg, wine, cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Orangefits about as well
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, egg, wine, cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon. 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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