Name: An Apple Charlotte, or Charlotte De Pommes
Ingredients: stale bread, thinly sliced; clarified butter; apple marmalade

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 ↓

An Apple Charlotte, or Charlotte De Pommes

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

stale bread, thinly sliced
clarified butter
apple marmalade

Directions

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

Butter a round or square cake tin and line it with thin slices of stale bread, dipped in clarified butter.
Fill the mould to the brim with apple marmalade.
Cover the top with more slices of bread dipped in butter.
Place a dish or a heavy plate on top to weigh it down.
Bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C) for 45 minutes if small, or 1 hour if large.
Carefully turn it out 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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Bread + appletop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,790 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,706 recipes

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