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Dessert

Apple Charlotte

A baked dessert of apples in butter, lemon rind, and bread.

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 ↓

Apple Charlotte

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Butter a mold well and line it with thin wholemeal bread and butter.

  2. Peel, core, and slice enough apples to fill the mold.

  3. Toss the apples in butter with a little water and grated lemon peel over medium heat until cooked.

Assemble and bake

  1. Egg and crumb the inside of the mold, fill it with the apples, and cover with bread and butter.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until the bread is nicely browned, about 20 minutes.

  3. Turn out and serve very hot.

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. Bread + appletop 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. Butter + appletop 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

Thin wholemeal bread
Forms the crisp, golden outer shell that holds the apples in shape.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the bread brown in the oven.
Apples
Provide the soft, moist filling that cooks down as the dish bakes.
Grated lemon rind
Adds bright aroma that balances the sweetness of the apples.

The step that matters

Browning the bread in the hot oven. The bread lining must be fully buttered and baked until nicely browned so it crisps and holds its shape when turned out. Pale bread will be soggy and may collapse under the moist apple filling.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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