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Dessert

Charlotte De Pommes

A baked apple dessert with bread, butter, molasses, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Charlotte De Pommes

Oven, in the book's wordsA very moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the dish

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Butter a deep pudding dish.

  3. Line the bottom and sides with buttered bread slices.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the dish with sliced apples and sprinkle with nutmeg.

  2. Mix together water and molasses, then pour over the apples.

  3. Sprinkle with brown sugar and cover with more buttered bread slices, ensuring the top is even and smooth.

  4. Cover the top with a tin pie plate.

  5. Bake for about 2 hours.

Serve

  1. When done, loosen the edges with a knife and carefully turn it out onto a dish.

  2. Serve hot with custard sauce flavored with rum, or with sugar and cream.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Buttered slices form the structure that holds the charlotte's shape while it bakes.
Apples
Provide the fruit filling that softens during baking and gives the dessert its body.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color and a rich, slightly bitter sweetness to the filling.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and caramel-like depth that browns the surface and sweetens the apples.
Butter
Greases the dish and bread, helping the slices brown and release cleanly when turned out.

The step that matters

Turn it out when done. Loosening the edges with a knife before inverting helps the soft, moist apple and bread layers release intact instead of tearing or collapsing.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, bread, apple, molasses, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovefits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Gingerfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, apple, molasses, 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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