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Dessert

Apple Charlotte

A dessert of grated apples, sugar, sherry, whipped cream, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and sherry work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 395 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Apple Charlotte

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grate the apples.

Mix the filling

  1. Add sugar and the stiffly beaten egg whites to the grated apples.

  2. Stir in the sherry.

Finish and serve

  1. Pile the whipped cream over the mixture.

  2. Decorate with Maraschino cherries.

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. Apple + sherrytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together395 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

  4. Sherry + creamtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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 and moisture of the dessert, with tartness from the fruit.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they trap air and give the mixture a light, airy structure.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and a light, airy topping through its trapped air and fat.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the apples.
Sherry
Adds a fortified wine aroma and flavour that complements the apples.

The step that matters

Add the stiffly beaten egg whites to the grated apples. Stiffly beaten egg whites hold air bubbles that give lightness. Stirring them in too hard or for too long deflates the foam, so the mixture turns dense and loses volume. Fold gently so the air stays trapped.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Applethe original

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