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An Easy Method of Making a Charlotte-aux-pommes

A layered apple charlotte with cake, apple marmalade, apples, cream, and raisin wine, served cold or hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

An Easy Method of Making a Charlotte-aux-pommes

6 persons

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cake

  1. Make a cake with the flour, butter, sugar, and baking powder; moisten with the egg and sufficient milk to make it the proper consistency, and bake it in a round tin.

  2. When the cake is cold, scoop out the middle, leaving a good thickness all round the sides, to prevent them breaking.

Assemble the charlotte

  1. Take some of the scooped-out pieces, trim them into neat slices, lay them in the cake, and pour over sufficient raisin wine, with a little brandy if approved, to soak them well.

  2. Have ready some apple marmalade (made by recipe No. 1395), then place a layer of this marmalade over the soaked cake, then a layer of cake, and a layer of apples.

Finish and serve

  1. Whip the cream to a froth, mixing with it the sugar and lemon juice.

  2. Pile the whipped cream on the top of the charlotte, and garnish it with pieces of clear apple jelly.

  3. Serve the dish cold, or eat hot by omitting the cream and garnishing the top with bright jelly just before serving.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

178Calories
7 gProtein
11 gFat
14 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Lemon + raisintop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and stay light.
Egg
Binds the cake batter and adds structure and richness to the crumb.
Cream
Whipped into a froth, it adds richness and a light, airy topping.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet cream and balances the richness.
Raisin wine
Soaks into the cake slices, moistening them and adding flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and the dish.

The step that matters

Scoop out the cake only when it is cold. A warm cake is soft and crumbly and tears easily. Once cooled, its crumb firms up, so the sides keep their thickness and hold the filling.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, lemon, egg, wine, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raspberryfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, lemon, egg, wine, sugar. 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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