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Dessert

Swiss Apple Charlotte

A baked dessert of sliced apples, sugar, lemon and buttered bread layered in a pie dish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Swiss Apple Charlotte

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the dish

  1. Remove the crust from a stale loaf and cut slices of bread and butter from the crumb.

  2. Butter the inside of a pie dish and line it with the bread and butter.

Layer the apples

  1. Add a layer of pared, cored, and sliced apples.

  2. Sprinkle finely cut lemon peel and sugar over the apples.

  3. Continue layering apples, lemon peel, and sugar until the dish is full.

  4. Squeeze the juice of two lemons over the entire dish.

  5. Cover with the bread crusts and apple peels to prevent burning.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 1 hour in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  2. Once done, remove the crusts and peels, and carefully turn out onto a dish.

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

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

  3. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

  4. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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 soft and flavourful as they cook.
Stale bread
Forms the structure of the shell, holding its shape while the apples cook.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the bread brown and crisp in the oven.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the apples caramelise slightly as they bake.
Lemons
Add acidity and fragrance that brighten the sweetness of the apples.

The step that matters

Covering with bread crusts and apple peels. The cover shields the top from direct heat so it does not scorch during the long bake, while the filling softens fully underneath.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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