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Apple Charlotte
896. Boil four large apples, beat them to a pulp and sweeten them with loaf sugar, add one egg and the rind of a lemon grated; pour this into a dish which has been well buttered and lined with bread crumbs, cover the top with crumbs, and bake it a light brown.
A plain crumb-lined baked apple pudding, closer to a brown betty than to the moulded bread-and-butter charlotte of restaurant cooking. The recipe is written in a single breath and leaves out dish size, oven heat and time.
- The hinge: dry the pulpBoil the apples with barely a spoonful or two of water, covered, then beat and cook uncovered until the puree holds its shape on a spoon. Wet pulp soaks the crumb lining and the charlotte collapses into a sludge when served.
- Four large applesReckon on roughly 1.5 to 2 lb of fruit before peeling and coring (the recipe does not actually say to do either), giving something like 2 cups of thick pulp. A sharp cooking apple such as Bramley breaks down to a puree unaided; a firm eating apple will need mashing or a stick blender.
- Loaf sugarRefined sugar sold in a hard cone and broken off in lumps. Ordinary granulated sugar is the equivalent. Quantity is left to taste; 3 to 4 oz suits a tart cooking apple, less for a sweet one.
- One eggBeat it into the pulp only after the puree has cooled to warm, or it will scramble in threads. One egg to this quantity of fruit sets the mixture lightly rather than turning it into a custard.
- The crumb liningUse dry white breadcrumbs, not fresh soft ones, and butter the dish generously so the crumbs adhere in an even coat. Dotting the top layer with a little extra butter gives the light brown the recipe asks for.
- Oven and timeNone is given; the recipe says only to bake it a light brown. A moderate oven of about 350F for 35 to 45 minutes in a buttered dish of roughly 1 quart will do it. The filling is already cooked, so you are only setting the egg and colouring the crumbs; brown the top under a grill briefly if it stays pale.
- Lemon rindGrate only the yellow zest of one lemon. The white pith beneath is bitter and there is nothing in this mixture to mask it.
- YieldFour modest servings. Cream or a thin custard suits it, and the pudding is better warm than hot.
The name honours a real charlotte, though which one has never been settled -- Queen Charlotte, consort of George III, is the traditional attribution, and Careme's later charlotte russe borrowed the form for a cold moulded sweet. The grand version lines a mould with butter-soaked bread fingers and turns out standing; this one does the same job with buttered breadcrumbs in the baking dish, which is quicker, cheaper and forgiving of stale bread. Recipes of this stamp sit at the point where the charlotte and the apple brown betty become hard to tell apart, and the numbered, telegraphic style is typical of nineteenth-century English-language compilations written for cooks who already knew what a charlotte should look like.