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Dessert

Apple Charlotte

A baked apple dessert with bread and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Biscuit and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 697 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Apple Charlotte

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 the apples

  1. Peel and core the apples.

  2. Stew them with enough sugar and the rind and juice of the lemon until soft.

Assemble the charlotte

  1. Butter a basin thoroughly.

  2. Place a piece of bread-and-butter at the bottom.

  3. Line the sides with overlapping strips of bread-and-butter.

  4. Fill the basin with the apple mixture.

  5. Cover with a buttered round of bread.

  6. Place a tin plate on top.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 30 minutes.

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. Biscuit + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together697 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

  3. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Biscuit + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,009 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Soften into a moist, sweet filling that forms the body of the dessert.
Bread-and-butter
Forms a crisp, golden shell around the soft apple filling as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and balances the tartness of the fruit.
Lemon
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the sweet apple filling.

The step that matters

Lining the basin with bread-and-butter. Bread that is cut too thick or left unbuttered at the edges can stay soggy or detach from the basin. Overlapping, buttered strips seal the sides so the shell holds its shape and browns evenly.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, biscuit, lemon, butter. 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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