Why it works: Apple and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 777 recipes. Both carry gamma-undecalactone, which smells peach, sweet. The science ↓
Apple Charlotte
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a rather brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.
Make the apple marmalade
Prepare apple marmalade by placing apples, sugar, butter, lemon peel, cinnamon, and water in a saucepan.
Cover and boil on high heat until apples are melted.
Remove the lid and stir over medium heat until the mixture thickens.
Line and fill the mold
Line a round charlotte mold with small circular pieces of bread dipped in clarified butter, overlapping them.
Cut oblong squares of bread, dip the bread squares in clarified butter, and line the sides of the mold with them, overlapping them.
Fill the mold with the apple marmalade.
Cover the marmalade with a circular piece of bread dipped in butter.
Bake and serve
Place the mold on a baking sheet.
Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.
Turn the charlotte out onto a dish.
Glaze the top with sifted sugar using a salamander.
Pour diluted apricot jam around the base before serving.
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.
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Apple + apricottop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together777 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-undecalactone (peach, sweet).
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Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,598 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
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Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,950 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Cinnamon + apricottop 8% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together618 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Apples
- Break down into the soft, moist marmalade that forms the filling.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the filling and helps the apples turn into a thick marmalade.
- Butter
- Adds richness and helps the bread brown and crisp in the oven.
- Stale bread
- Forms the firm outer shell that holds the filling in its shape.
The step that matters
Stirring the marmalade until it thickens. If the apple mixture is too wet, the charlotte will be soggy and won't hold its shape when turned out. Cooking off the excess liquid over medium heat concentrates the sugars and thickens the filling.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, butter, cinnamon, bread, apricot):
- Vanillafits better
- Pearfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, butter, cinnamon, bread, apricot. 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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