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Dessert

Apple Charlotte

A baked apple dessert with buttered bread layers and lemon rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Apple Charlotte

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the apples

  1. Peel, core, and slice the apples.

  2. Place the apples in a saucepan with the sugar and 1 tablespoon of water, and cook until tender.

Make the filling

  1. Once the apples are a smooth pulp, stir in the butter and lemon rind, and sweeten to taste.

Line and bake

  1. Prepare a souffle mold by covering the bottom with a round of bread dipped in melted butter.

  2. Line the sides of the mold with overlapping rounds of bread or long strips dipped in oiled butter.

  3. Pour the apple pulp into the mold and cover with a round of bread.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Apple + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,790 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooking apples
Break down into a smooth pulp that forms the soft, moist filling.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the apple pulp and adds a caramel-like flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the bread coat and brown in the oven.
Bread
Forms the crisp, golden shell that holds the apple filling in shape.

The step that matters

Cook the apples to a smooth pulp. Apples that stay chunky or watery leave gaps and a soggy filling. Cooking until fully tender lets the pulp thicken and hold its shape when the charlotte is turned out and baked.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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