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Dessert

Charlotte of Apples

A baked apple dessert with yolk, lemon, butter, and sugar in a pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,551 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Charlotte of Apples

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the apples

  1. Pare and core the apples, then boil them in sufficient water until soft.

  2. Mash the apples until smooth.

Make the filling

  1. Add the egg yolks, lemon juice, lemon peel, and softened butter to the apples.

  2. Mix well and sweeten with powdered sugar.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie crust and bake at 400°F (200°C) until set.

  2. Serve open.

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

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

  2. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the bulk of the filling, softening into a smooth purée that gives the charlotte its body.
Egg yolks
Thicken the mixture as they set, giving the filling a custard-like texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the filling.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the apples and sugar.
Pie crust
Holds the filling in shape while it bakes and sets.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Egg yolks set as they heat, so the filling must reach a firm, custard-like state. Underbaking leaves it runny, while overbaking can make it grainy or cause it to weep.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, lemon, butter, sugar. 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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