Name: Pie-plant Charlotte
Ingredients: pie-plant, cut into small pieces; sugar (1 pound for 1 pound of pie-plant); bread crumbs; butter (for greasing); thin slices of buttered bread

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Pie-plant Charlotte

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

pie-plant, cut into small pieces
sugar (1 pound for 1 pound of pie-plant)
bread crumbs
butter (for greasing)
thin slices of buttered bread

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Layer and bake

Cover the bottom of a pudding dish with a layer of pie-plant and sugar.
Add a layer of bread crumbs and bits of butter or thin slices of buttered bread.
Repeat the layers until the dish is full.
Bake for 45 minutes.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sugar + breadtop 32% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,638 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pie-plant: Provides the tart flavor and most of the moisture that soaks into the layers.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and balances the sharp tartness of the pie-plant.
Bread crumbs: Absorb the cooking juices and help hold the layers together as the charlotte sets.
Butter: Adds richness and helps the top and bread edges brown during baking.

“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.