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Dessert

Charlotte of Apples

A baked apple dessert with buttered bread and dried cherries, sweetened with quince syrup, apricot jam, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and quince work together. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 506 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Charlotte of Apples

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Stew the apples with butter, quince syrup, apricot jam, and brandy.

  2. Sieve the mixture through a fine sieve.

  3. Add dried cherries to the mixture.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a mold with the diamond-shaped bread dipped in oiled butter.

  2. Pour the apple mixture into the mold and cover with more butter-dipped bread.

  3. Bake until lightly colored and sprinkle with sugar before serving.

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 + quincetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together506 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Apple + apricottop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together777 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-undecalactone (peach, sweet).

  3. Quince + apricottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together75 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the bulk of the filling and its tender, fruity body once stewed.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the bread brown and crisp in the oven.
Apricot jam
Adds sweetness and body to the filling, helping it hold together when sieved.
Bread
Forms the structure of the charlotte, lining and enclosing the filling as it bakes.
Brandy
Adds aroma and a warm, sharp flavour to the apple mixture.

The step that matters

Sieving the stewed apple mixture. Sieving removes lumps and excess liquid so the filling is smooth and holds its shape against the bread. Too much liquid left in the filling can soften the bread and make the charlotte soggy when baked.

Swap the quince

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Quincethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, butter, syrup, apricot, brandy, bread, 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.

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