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Dessert

Charlotte De Pommes

A baked apple dessert layered with buttered bread and sweetened with molasses and brown sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Charlotte De Pommes

Oven, in the book's wordsA very moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

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

  2. Butter a deep pudding dish.

  3. Line the bottom and sides with buttered bread slices.

Assemble

  1. Fill the dish with sliced apples and sprinkle with nutmeg.

  2. Mix together the water and molasses, then pour over the apples.

  3. Sprinkle with brown sugar and cover with more buttered bread slices, ensuring the top is even and smooth.

  4. Cover the top with a tin pie plate.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for about 2 hours.

  2. When done, loosen the edges with a knife and carefully turn it out onto a dish.

  3. Serve hot with custard sauce flavored with rum, or with sugar and cream.

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. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Bread + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,790 recipes

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

  5. Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Forms the soft outer shell that holds the apples in shape while baking.
Apples
Provide the main filling, becoming tender and moist as they bake.
Molasses
Adds dark color, deep sweetness and moisture to the filling.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and caramel-like flavor and helps the top brown.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the bread crisp and brown at the edges.

The step that matters

Lining the dish with bread. Bread slices must be fully buttered and pressed snugly against the dish so no gaps let the filling leak or collapse when the charlotte is turned out.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovefits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Gingerfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, apple, molasses, 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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