Name: Apple Charlotte
Ingredients: 3 lb apples; 3 oz clarified butter; Slices of stale bread; 3 oz butter for marmalade; ¾ lb sugar; Juice of 1 lemon; ½ teaspoon powdered cinnamon

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

Butter a round cake tin or deep pie dish.
Cut thin oblong slices of stale bread for lining the tin.
Dip the bread slices in clarified butter and line the tin, ensuring the ends overlap to prevent fruit escape.
Pare, quarter, and core the apples.
In a saucepan, combine apples, 3 oz fresh butter, ¾ lb sugar, ½ teaspoon cinnamon, and the strained juice of the lemon.

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.

Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,598 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,950 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Apple + breadtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,790 recipes

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

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

Swap the lemon

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Pearfits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, butter, bread, sugar, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.