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Charlottes Aux Pommes

A baked apple and apricot marmalade charlotte topped with bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 777 recipes. Both carry gamma-undecalactone, which smells peach, sweet. The science ↓

Charlottes Aux Pommes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Assemble

  1. Cut the apples flush with the mold.

  2. Cover the bottom and sides of the mold with part of the apples.

  3. In the center, place three spoonfuls of apricot marmalade.

  4. Fill the mold with the remaining apples.

  5. Cover with a round piece of bread the same size as the mold.

  6. Place the mold on a small baking sheet.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 25 to 30 minutes until the bread is golden.

  2. If it browns too fast, cover with a metal lid.

  3. Invert the charlotte onto a hot dish and serve immediately with apricot and maraschino sauce.

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 + apricottop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together777 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-undecalactone (peach, sweet).

  2. Apple + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,790 recipes

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

  3. Apricot + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together178 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Form the soft, moist filling that fills the mold and cooks down during baking.
Apricot marmalade
Adds concentrated sweetness and fruity aroma to the centre of the filling.
Bread
Forms a golden top and sides that hold the shape once the charlotte is inverted.

The step that matters

Watching the browning. The bread can darken faster than the apples cook through. Covering it with a metal lid slows surface browning so the centre heats fully before the top over-colours.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Apricotthe original
  4. Plumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, bread. 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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