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Dessert

Apple Charlotte

A baked apple dessert with layers of buttered bread, apples, sugar, cinnamon, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. 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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Butter a pudding dish.

Assemble

  1. Layer half of the buttered bread slices in the dish.

  2. Add a thick layer of sliced apples, then sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.

  3. Repeat with another layer of buttered bread, followed by apples, sugar, and cinnamon until the dish is full.

  4. Top with remaining apples, cinnamon, sugar, and bits of butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover the dish and bake for 1 hour.

  2. Remove the cover and bake for an additional 20 minutes to brown the top.

  3. Serve warm with sauce or 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. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

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

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Forms the layers that soak up the apple juices and hold the dish together.
Apples
Provide the fruit filling, releasing moisture and flavour as they cook.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the apples caramelise and brown at the top.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Covering, then uncovering, the dish. Baking covered first traps steam so the apples cook through and the bread softens. Removing the cover for the final 20 minutes lets moisture escape so the top can brown.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

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