Skip to main content
Dessert

A Charlotte

A layered dessert of buttered bread and apples baked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

A Charlotte

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Rub a baking dish thickly with butter.

Assemble

  1. Cut thin slices of white bread to cover the bottom and line the sides of the dish.

  2. Layer thin slices of apples in the dish, sprinkling sugar and bits of butter between layers.

  3. Soak additional thin slices of bread in warm milk, then place a plate and a weight on top to press the bread onto the apples.

Bake

  1. Bake slowly for three hours.

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. Bread + appletop 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

White bread
Forms the structure of the dish, holding the layers together as it softens during baking.
Butter
Adds richness and helps brown the bread and coat the dish so it does not stick.
Apples
Provide moisture and fruit flavour as they soften and release juice into the layers.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the apples caramelise slightly during slow baking.
Warm milk
Softens the bread so it can press onto the apples and set into a custard-like texture.

The step that matters

Bake slowly for three hours. Low, slow heat lets the apples soften fully and the milk-soaked bread set without scorching. Baking too hot risks a burnt top and a raw, watery centre.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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.

You might also like

Apple Bread PuddingApple Bread Pudding21 recipesApple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipes