An Apple Charlotte, or Charlotte De Pommes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the mould
Butter a plain mould (a round or square cake tin will work) and line it entirely with thin slices of stale bread crumb, cut to fit, and dip the slices in clarified butter.
Ensure the bread strips join perfectly; if any spaces remain, the fruit syrup may escape and spoil appearance. If insufficient marmalade, add quince, apricot, or preserved cherry jam.
(Optional) For an easier crust, line the mould with small rounds of bread stamped out with a plain cake or paste cutter, dip in butter, and arrange with edges overlapping to hold fruit securely.
Fill and bake
Fill the mould to the brim with apple marmalade.
Cover the marmalade with slices of bread dipped in butter, and place a dish, a large plate, or the cover of a French stewpan with a weight on top.
Bake in a brisk oven for three quarters of an hour if small, or for an hour if large.
If baked in a slack oven, it will not take proper colour and may break in the dish.
Serve
Remove carefully and serve hot.
Drain the butter from the Charlotte before removing from the mould; sift sugar over it before serving, or cover with clear red jelly.
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
What each ingredient does
- Stale bread (in the method)
- Forms the crisp golden case that holds the fruit in its shape.
- Clarified butter (in the method)
- Fat that helps the bread brown and crisp as it bakes.
- Apple marmalade (in the method)
- Cooked apple filling that forms the soft, moist centre of the Charlotte.
The step that matters
Bake in a brisk oven. A hot oven browns and crisps the bread case. In a slack oven the Charlotte will not take proper colour and may break when turned out.
“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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