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Dessert

Apple Charlotte

A baked dessert of sliced apples and bread, layered with butter, lemon, and sugar, served with cream or butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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

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

  1. Pare and slice the apples.

  2. Remove the crust from the loaf of bread and cut the rest into slices, then butter them.

  3. Butter a pie dish and line it with the bread slices.

Layer

  1. Add a layer of apples sprinkled with finely chopped lemon peel and sugar.

  2. Repeat layers of bread and butter and apples until the dish is full.

  3. Squeeze the juice of two lemons over the top.

  4. Cover with bread crusts and apple parings to prevent browning.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

  2. Remove the crust and peels, then turn it out of the dish.

  3. Serve with sugar and cream or butter.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

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

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, becoming tender and sweet-tart as they cook.
White 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.
Lemons
Add acidity and aroma, brightening the sweetness of the apples and sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the apple layers and helps them caramelise slightly as they cook.

The step that matters

Covering with bread crusts and apple parings. The top layer shields the apples from direct heat, preventing them from browning or drying out too early during the long bake.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, bread, butter, sugar, milk. 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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