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Dessert

Charlotte of Apples

A baked apple dessert with layers of bread, butter, sugar, and apricot jam.

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

Charlotte of Apples

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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Butter a baking dish and line it with thin slices of bread, removing the crusts.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix the sliced apples with the softened butter, sugar, and apricot jam.

  2. Fill the lined baking dish with the apple mixture.

  3. Cover the top with more slices of bread.

  4. Bake for 30 minutes.

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. 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. Butter + apricottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,458 recipes

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

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 and moisture as they soften during baking.
Bread
Forms the structure that holds the filling and soaks up juices as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the filling taste rounded and the bread brown.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the apples caramelise at the edges.
Apricot jam
Adds sweetness and fruity flavour, and helps bind the apple mixture together.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Pearfits about as well
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Apricotthe 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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