Skip to main content
Dessert

Charlotte, Rusaa Jiiico

A baked cake made with flour, butter, sugar, baking powder, egg, milk, soaked in raisin wine and brandy, layered with apple marmalade, apples, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Charlotte, Rusaa Jiiico

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.

Make the cake

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix flour, butter, sugar, and baking powder.

  3. Add the egg and enough milk to achieve a proper consistency.

  4. Pour the batter into a round tin and bake for 1 hour.

Assemble

  1. Once cooled, scoop out the middle, leaving a thick edge.

  2. Trim the scooped-out pieces into neat slices and place them back in the cake.

  3. Soak the cake with raisin wine and optional brandy.

  4. Spread a layer of apple marmalade over the soaked cake.

  5. Add a layer of cake and then a layer of apples.

Finish and serve

  1. Whip the cream with sugar and lemon juice until frothy.

  2. Top the charlotte with whipped cream and garnish with apple jelly.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the cake crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Cream
Whipped, it adds a light, moist topping that contrasts the cake.
Apple marmalade
Adds fruit flavour and moisture between the cake layers.

The step that matters

Soaking the cake. The cake must be soaked evenly but not saturated, otherwise it turns soggy and collapses. Cooling fully before scooping keeps the walls firm enough to hold the layers.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, sugar, egg, milk, wine, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Apricotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, egg, milk, wine, brandy. 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.

More apple charlotte recipes

Swiss 4 See all 235 →

You might also like

Apple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipes