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Dessert

Apple Charlotte

A baked dessert of sliced apples and bread, sweetened with sugar and butter, optionally topped with cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. 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.

Prepare the apples

  1. Peel and core the apples, then slice them.

  2. Cook the apples in a pot with a little butter and sugar until soft.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a baking dish and line it with slices of bread.

  2. Fill the dish with the cooked apples and cover with more bread slices.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until the bread is golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve warm, optionally dusted with cinnamon.

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

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

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 and fruity flavour of the filling, softening into a moist, sweet layer.
Bread
Forms the structure of the charlotte, soaking up juices and browning on top in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the bread brown and crisp in the baking dish.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and helps them soften and caramelise slightly as they cook.

The step that matters

Cooking the apples until soft. Apples that stay firm release less moisture into a dish, so the apples should be fully softened before assembly to avoid a soggy or uneven filling.

“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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