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Dessert

Charlotte a LA Pomme

A layered dessert of cream-soaked stale bread and stewed apples, topped with egg and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Charlotte a LA Pomme

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

  1. Cut stale bread into thin slices.

  2. Dip the slices in rich cream.

  3. Place the slices around a dish or bowl.

  4. Fill the dish with preserved or stewed apples.

  5. Season with grated lemon peel or cinnamon.

Assemble and bake

  1. Lay thinner pieces of bread soaked in cream over the top.

  2. Brush the top with a feather dipped in egg.

  3. Bake until slightly brown at 350°F (175°C).

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. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  2. Bread + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Bread + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,445 recipes

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

Lemon and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Stale bread
Forms the structure of the dish and soaks up cream so it holds its shape.
Rich cream
Soaks into the bread and adds moisture and richness to the finished dish.
Preserved or stewed apples
Provides the fruit filling and its sweet, tender body.
Egg
Brushed on top, it helps the surface set and brown during baking.

The step that matters

Brush the top with a feather dipped in egg.. Egg proteins set and brown in the oven, so a thin, even coat gives an evenly coloured top. Too much egg can pool and leave a greasy or uneven surface.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, cream, lemon, 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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