Name: Apple Charlotte
Ingredients: 12 juicy apples, chopped; 1/4 loaf bread, grated; butter, for greasing; spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, etc.); sugar; small lumps of butter

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

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Grease a baking dish with butter.

Layer and bake

Cover the bottom with a layer of chopped apples, then sprinkle with spices, sugar, and small lumps of butter.
Add a layer of grated bread on top.
Repeat the layers until the dish is full, finishing with a layer of bread that is well buttered.

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.

Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,598 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,790 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Apples: Provide the bulk of the filling and moisture that softens during baking.
Bread: Forms the layered structure that soaks up juices and bakes to a tender, golden top.
Butter: Adds richness and helps the top layer brown as it bakes.
Sugar: Sweetens the apples and helps them caramelise slightly at the edges.

Swap the apple

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Raisinfits better
Applethe original

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