Name: Apple Charlotte
Ingredients: 8 slices of buttered bread; 4 cups sliced apples; ½ cup sugar; 1 lemon

Why it works: Bread and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,790 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Apple Charlotte

Ingredients

8 slices of buttered bread
4 cups sliced apples
½ cup sugar
1 lemon

Directions

Prepare and layer

Butter a quart-sized mold.
Layer slices of buttered bread and sliced apples alternately in the mold.
Sprinkle sugar over the top layer of bread.
Squeeze the juice of one lemon over the bread.

Steam and serve

Steam for 45 minutes.
Serve hot or cold, dusted with sugar or with your favorite sauce.

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.

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).
Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together16,478 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Bread + lemontop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,445 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 main body and fruity flavor, softening into a tender filling as they steam.
Bread: Forms the structure that soaks up juices and steams into a soft, custard-like layer.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the apples release juice and develop flavor during steaming.
Lemon: Adds acidity that brightens the apple flavor and helps keep the fruit from tasting flat.