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Dessert

Apple Charlotte

A baked apple and bread layered dessert with butter, lemon, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Apple Charlotte

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Trim the crusts off the bread slices and butter one side of each slice.

  3. Butter a pie dish and place a layer of bread, buttered side down, at the bottom.

Layer and bake

  1. Peel, core, and slice the apples, then layer them on top of the bread.

  2. Sprinkle the apples with sugar, some grated lemon rind, and a few drops of lemon juice.

  3. Repeat the layers until the dish is full, finishing with a layer of apple peel on top.

  4. Bake for about 45 minutes.

Serve

  1. Once done, remove the peel, turn the dish out onto a serving plate, sprinkle with white sugar, and serve immediately.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the fruit filling that softens and sweetens as it bakes.
Bread
Forms the structural layers that hold the shape and soak up the fruit juices.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps the bread crisp and brown on its buttered side.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the apples and slows their browning.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and helps them caramelise slightly at the edges.

The step that matters

Finishing with a layer of apple peel on top. The peel on top keeps the apple layers from drying out and helps hold the structure during baking. Removing it afterward reveals the softened fruit underneath.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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