Name: Apple Charlotte
Ingredients: wheat bread or rolls; butter; tart apples

Why it works: Wheat and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,002 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Apple Charlotte

Ingredients

wheat bread or rolls
butter
tart apples

Directions

Cut slices of wheat bread or rolls.
Grease the bottom and sides of a basin with butter.
Line the basin with the sliced bread or rolls.
Peel and chop the tart apples.
Fill the basin nearly to the top with the chopped apples.

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.

Wheat + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,002 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,706 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Wheat + appletop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together205 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).