Skip to main content
Dessert

A Charlotte

A baked fruit custard dessert with bread slices and custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Apple and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,774 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

A Charlotte

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dish

  1. Butter both sides of the bread slices thickly.

  2. Butter a deep dish or pan.

  3. Cut the bread slices to fit the bottom and sides of the dish.

  4. Reserve a few slices to cover the top.

  5. Soak the reserved slices in custard.

Assemble and bake

  1. Fill the dish with fruit and sugar, adding cloves if desired.

  2. Cover the top with the soaked bread slices.

  3. Dot the top with butter.

  4. Place a plate with a weight on top of the dish.

  5. Bake until done.

  6. Turn out of the mold.

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 + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Bread + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

  5. Bread + clovetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,129 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Thick bread slices
Form the outer structure and absorb custard, becoming soft and tender while the shape holds.
Butter
Coats the bread so it browns and crisps, and adds richness to the top and dish.
Apples or other fruit
Provides the moist filling and fruity flavour that softens during baking.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit filling and helps it caramelize slightly at the edges.
Custard
Soaks into the bread and sets during baking, binding the layers together.

The step that matters

Place a plate with a weight on top of the dish.. The weight presses the bread and fruit down so the layers stay compact and the shape holds when turned out, rather than collapsing.

Swap the clove

The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, apple, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Gingerfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, apple, sugar. 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.

You might also like

Apple Bread PuddingApple Bread Pudding21 recipesApple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipes