Name: Apple Charlotte, Plain
Ingredients: 1 quart apples; 1 pound bread; 1 lemon; 2 ounces butter; 4 tablespoons sugar

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 ↓

Apple Charlotte, Plain

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

Butter a pudding mold generously.
Cut enough slices of bread to fill the mold halfway and spread them with butter.
Pare, core, and slice the apples.
Grate the yellow rind and squeeze the juice of the lemon.

Assemble and bake

Layer the bread and butter with the apple slices in the mold, sprinkling sugar and lemon juice between layers.
Cover the top of the mold to prevent burning and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

Serve

Turn it out onto a dish, sprinkle with powdered sugar, and serve hot.

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).
Apple + breadtop 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 + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,706 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples: Provide the fruit filling that softens and turns tender as it bakes.
Bread: Forms the structure of the charlotte, soaking up butter and juices as it bakes.
Butter: Adds richness and helps the bread brown and crisp on its surface.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the apples caramelize slightly in the layers.
Lemon: Adds acidity and brightness that balances the sweetness of the apples and sugar.

The step that matters

Cover the top of the mold to prevent burning and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.. Covering the mold traps steam so the bread and apples cook through without the top scorching before the interior is tender. Sugar in the exposed layers can darken quickly, so the cover controls browning.