Name: Charlotte Des Pommes
Ingredients: butter for greasing; slices of stale bread or cake; 2 tablespoons butter; 2 egg yolks; 1 pint stewed apple; powdered sugar; 2 egg whites; lemon or rose flavoring

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Charlotte Des Pommes

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

Grease a dish or form with butter.
Line the dish with slices of stale bread or cake.

Make the filling

In a bowl, beat together the butter and egg yolks.
Add the stewed apple and flavor to taste.

Assemble and bake

Fill the dish with the apple mixture and cover with more bread or cake.
Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for a short time.

Finish and serve

Once cooled, turn it out onto a plate.
Top with a meringue made from the egg whites and powdered sugar, flavored with lemon or rose.

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Bread + appletop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,790 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,551 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,706 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread or cake: Forms the outer structure that holds the soft apple filling in shape.
Stewed apple: Provides the moist, soft body of the filling and its main flavor.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a smoother, softer texture.
Egg yolks: Enrich the filling and help bind it as it bakes and sets.
Egg whites: Whipped into a meringue that forms a light, sweet topping.