No. 3008

Apple Charlotte

Charlotte de Pommes

Cut a few russet apples in four, peel, core and mince them up rather coarsely, then put them into a sautoir with some melted butter; stir and toss incessantly over a good fire until the moisture is reduced, then sweeten. Butter a four-inch high by four and a half inches in diameter charlotte mold, cover the bottom with a flat rosette made of long triangles of bread, an eighth of an inch thick, pointed on one end and rounded on the other, carefully dipping them as needed in clarified butter. These slices should slightly overlap each other. Remove the center with a one-inch tube and replace with a round of bread of the same size dipped in butter. Cut some one-eighth inch thick slices of bread into inch-wide strips, having them somewhat higher than the mold; dip them in clarified butter and apply them upright to the inner side of the mold, one overlapping the other, cut flush with the mold; cover the bottom and sides of the mold with part of the apples, and in the center put three spoonfuls of apricot marmalade (No. 3675); finish filling with the remainder of the apples, and cover these with a round piece of bread the same size as the mold, then lay the mold on a small baking sheet, push it into a hot oven and leave for twenty-five to thirty minutes, so that the bread becomes a fine golden color. Should it brown too fast put a metal cover on top. Invert the charlotte on a hot dish and serve it at once with an apricot and maraschino sauce poured around (see Humboldt pudding, No. 3100).

← No. 3007 Charlotte a la Destrey Hot Entremets — Puddings, Fritters & Soufflés No. 3009 Compiegne with Sabayon →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a pastry cook's hands and a proper charlotte mold, but the dish is straightforward once you know the two things that decide whether it survives unmolding: dry apples and butter-soaked bread.

The hinge: cook the apples nearly dry"Until the moisture is reduced" is not a suggestion. A wet filling steams the bread lining from the inside and the charlotte collapses the moment it is inverted. Cook the minced apples over high heat, stirring, until the mass holds its shape on the spoon and no liquid pools, then sweeten — sugar added early draws out more juice.
SautoirA straight-sided shallow pan; any wide skillet works. The width matters more than the material because you are driving off water.
"A hot oven"Ranhofer gives no figure; a modern equivalent is somewhere around 400-425F. You want the butter-dipped bread to fry to golden brown in 25 to 30 minutes, not to dry out slowly. The metal cover Ranhofer mentions can be replaced with loose foil laid over the top if the crown colors before the sides set.
The moldFour inches high by four and a half across is roughly a 1-quart charlotte mold — a plain, slightly flaring tin pail shape. A straight-sided 1-quart souffle dish or a small deep cake tin substitutes, though the classic flare makes unmolding easier.
Russet applesGolden Russet and similar dry, dense russets are farmers'-market fruit now. Choose any firm cooking apple that breaks down without flooding: Bramley, Braeburn, Granny Smith. Avoid soft eating apples such as Red Delicious.
BreadAn unsliced firm white loaf, crusts removed, cut to a scant 1/8 inch. Pain de mie or a close-crumbed sandwich loaf is right; open, airy artisan bread tears and soaks unevenly. Day-old is easier to cut thin.
Clarified butter, not wholeThe milk solids in whole butter scorch at this temperature and taste bitter against the apple. Clarify a stick and keep it warm and liquid so the bread absorbs it rather than mopping up a greasy film.
Apricot marmaladeHis No. 3675 is a thick apricot preserve. Good apricot jam warmed and, if needed, pushed through a sieve stands in; it should be stiff, not runny.
Resting and servingLet the mold stand five minutes off the heat before inverting, then serve immediately — the crust softens quickly. Serves four to six with the apricot and maraschino sauce spooned around the base, not over the top.

A Little History

The apple charlotte is generally traced to late eighteenth-century England, and the name is usually credited to Queen Charlotte, consort of George III, though that attribution is traditional rather than documented. What distinguishes this hot version from the later charlotte russe — Careme's cold construction of ladyfingers and bavarian cream — is that it is essentially a bread-lined mold of stewed fruit, baked until the lining fries crisp in butter. Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York and author of The Epicurean (1894), gives it the full restaurant treatment: the fitted rosette of triangular bread on the base, the one-inch plug cut and replaced, the overlapping upright strips trimmed flush. That fussiness is the point of the book, which was written as a professional reference for a kitchen with a staff and a numbered cross-reference for every sauce and preserve. The dish also shows how usefully thrifty haute cuisine could be — a stale loaf and a few apples, dressed up with apricot and maraschino and sent out as an entremets.