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Dessert

Charlotte Russe

A baked apple charlotte made with finger biscuits, apples, jam, and butter.

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

Charlotte Russe

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Peel and core the apples, then cook them until soft.

  2. Melt a little butter and brush it inside a mold.

Assemble

  1. Line the mold with finger biscuits and fill it with the cooked apples.

  2. Make a hole in the center using a cylindrical glass, then fill the glass with red currant jelly or apricot jam.

  3. Remove the glass.

  4. Cover the top with more finger biscuits and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 7 minutes.

Serve

  1. Invert the charlotte onto a dish and serve 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. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Cinnamon + biscuittop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together312 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Red currant + biscuittop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together30 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Cinnamon + red curranttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together93 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Apple + red curranttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together111 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Apples
Cooked to a soft filling that gives the charlotte its body and sweet flavor.
Finger biscuits
Absorb moisture and hold their shape, forming the structure that encloses the filling.
Red currant jelly or apricot jam
Adds sweetness and fruity flavor to the centre of the charlotte.

The step that matters

Removing the glass from the centre. If the hole is not kept open while the apples are packed around it, the filling can slump into the gap. The jelly or jam then has no defined channel to fill, and the cavity may collapse during baking.

Swap the red currant

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

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Quincefits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, cinnamon, butter, biscuit. 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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