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Dessert

An Apple Charlotte, or Charlotte Des Pommes

A baked dessert of apple marmalade and buttered bread, served hot with optional sugar or clear red jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and quince work together. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 506 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

An Apple Charlotte, or Charlotte Des Pommes

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Assemble

  1. Butter a round or square cake tin and line it with thin slices of stale bread, dipped in clarified butter.

  2. Fill the mould to the brim with apple marmalade.

  3. Cover the top with more slices of bread dipped in butter.

  4. Place a dish or a heavy plate on top to weigh it down.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in the oven for 45 minutes if small, or 1 hour if large.

  2. Carefully turn it out and serve hot.

  3. Drain excess butter before serving and optionally sift sugar or cover with clear red jelly.

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 + quincetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together506 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

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

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

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

  4. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

  5. Bread + quincetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together36 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread
Forms the crisp, golden outer shell that holds the soft filling in shape.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the bread brown and crisp in the oven.
Apple marmalade
Provides the moist, sweet filling that sets as the charlotte bakes.
Clear red jelly
Adds a glossy finish and extra sweetness on top, if used.

The step that matters

Weighting the top before baking. A weight pressed on the bread keeps the filling compact and the layers in contact, so the charlotte holds its shape when turned out instead of collapsing or leaving gaps.

Swap the quince

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Quincethe original

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