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Dessert

Apple Charlotte

A baked apple dessert with bread rounds and a custard-like filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Apple Charlotte

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the apple filling

  1. Peel and slice the apples, then cook them with butter, cinnamon, and cloves until soft.

  2. Mix the egg yolks with water and combine with the apple mixture.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter the bread rounds and layer them in a baking dish.

  2. Pour the apple mixture over the bread and top with more bread rounds.

  3. Bake for 30-40 minutes until golden.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Soften into a moist, sweet filling that gives the charlotte its body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the bread brown and softening the apples.
Egg yolks
Bind the apple mixture and help it set as it bakes.
Bread
Forms the structure that holds the filling and crisps and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Combining the egg yolks with the apple mixture. Egg yolks set when heated, so adding them to a hot mixture without tempering can cause scrambling. Mixing them in gently helps the filling bind evenly as it bakes.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, cinnamon, clove, bread):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Applethe original
  4. Quincefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, cinnamon, clove, 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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