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Dessert

Apple Charlotte

A baked apple dessert with sponge finger biscuits or bread-and-butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 the apples and core the apples.

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

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a basin thoroughly.

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

  3. Line the sides of the basin 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.

  7. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 1 hour.

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. Sugar + biscuittop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Apple + biscuittop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together260 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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, which softens and sweetens as it stews.
Sponge finger biscuits or bread-and-butter
Form the structure of the case that holds the soft apple filling in shape.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and helps them stew to a soft, spoonable texture.
Lemon
Adds acidity and aroma to the stewed apples, brightening their flavour.

The step that matters

Lining the basin with bread-and-butter. Bread must be buttered and packed tightly with no gaps, so the butter crisps and browns in the oven and the case holds its shape when turned out. Loose or missing pieces let the soft filling leak and collapse.

Swap the apple

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

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

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