Skip to main content
Dessert

Apple Charlotte

A baked dessert of matzo, suet, apples, sugar, raisins, cinnamon, almonds, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. 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. Soak the matzos and press out every drop of water.

Make the mixture

  1. Add the suet, sliced apples, sugar, raisins, cinnamon, almonds, and egg yolks.

  2. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth and fold into the mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 1 hour.

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. Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Matzos
Soaked and pressed dry, they form the bready base that holds the layers together.
Egg whites
Beaten to a stiff froth, they trap air and lighten the mixture as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Enrich the mixture and help it set into a custard-like texture when baked.
Suet
Adds richness and fat, keeping the mixture moist and tender as it bakes.
Apples
Provide moisture and tartness that soften during baking.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth and fold. Folding gently keeps the air beaten into the whites, which lifts the mixture. Stirring vigorously knocks the air out, leaving a denser result.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, raisin, cinnamon, almond, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, raisin, cinnamon, almond, egg. 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.

More apple charlotte recipes

Swiss 4 See all 235 →

You might also like

Apple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesApple CakeApple Cake80 recipesApple MeringueApple Meringue75 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipes