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Dessert

Jam or Marmalade Charlotte

A baked bread charlotte layered with jam or marmalade, butter, sugar, almonds, and optional custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Jam or Marmalade Charlotte

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the bread

  1. Trim the crusts off the bread slices and lay them on a dish.

  2. Pour the melted butter over the bread and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 10 minutes.

  3. Once the butter is absorbed and the bread is cold, spread each slice with jam or marmalade and sprinkle with sifted sugar.

Assemble the charlotte

  1. Blanch and chop the almonds, then butter a plain mold and strew the almonds over it.

  2. Layer the jam-covered bread in the mold, cover with a dish, and bake for 25-30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Carefully turn out the charlotte and serve with or without cream or custard.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Forms the layered structure that holds the charlotte together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the bread brown and crisp in the oven.
Jam or marmalade
Provides sweetness, moisture and fruity flavor between the bread layers.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top of the bread caramelize lightly.
Almonds
Add a nutty flavor and a crunchy texture to the mold's surface.

The step that matters

Let the buttered bread cool before spreading the jam. Warm bread is soft and still absorbing butter, so jam spread on it can soak in and make the layers soggy. Letting the bread cool first lets the jam stay on top and keeps the layers firm.

“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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