Name: A Charlotte
Ingredients: ½ pound fresh butter; ½ pint white wine; 3 tablespoons orange-flower water; 1 nutmeg, grated; sugar to taste; new milk or cream as needed; puff pastry

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

A 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.

Make the filling

Melt the butter in a bowl.
Add white wine, orange‑flower water, grated nutmeg, and sugar. Mix well.
If the mixture is too thick, stir in a little new milk or cream.

Assemble and bake

Cover a baking dish with puff pastry.
Pour the mixture into the dish and bake for 1 hour at 350°F (175°C).

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,746 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,083 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
White wine + orangetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together730 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Nutmeg + milktop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,685 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

Fresh butter: Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a smooth, rich body.
White wine: Adds acidity and liquid, brightening the flavour of the filling.
Orange-flower water: Contributes a floral aroma to the filling.
Puff pastry: Forms the flaky crust that holds the filling in the baking dish.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, white wine, nutmeg, sugar, milk):

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Lemonfits better
Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, white wine, nutmeg, sugar, milk. 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.