Lush charlotte with apples in the oven with baking powder

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Prepared by: Arutyunova Kristina

07/25/2017 Cooking time: 1 hour 0 minutes

Today I will share with you the secret of how to cook a classic charlotte with apples in the oven. This dish is ideal for those losing weight, and will also become a favorite treat for the whole family (especially children)!

What is charlotte

This is a cake about which there is a romantic story. Allegedly, the chef in love came up with a dessert with apples and dedicated it to his lady love. And her name was Charlotte. But this name hides several types of desserts.

For example, French charlotte is a kind of pudding. It is made from stale white bread, apples and choux pastry. And they prepared it in the fall. After all, it was at this time that the apple harvest was being harvested.

And in Russia they came up with another way to make charlotte. Although its author is still a Frenchman, who was in the service of the Russian Tsar. True, this recipe is more of an instruction for making a homemade pie. After all, this charlotte is very different from the French one, and, probably, it can be called a classic sponge cake on an apple pillow. But it tastes great.

Ingredients

For a regular biscuit charlotte, we don’t need a lot of ingredients. Here are the basic ones:

• 6 eggs;
• one and a half cups of flour;
• the same amount of sugar;
• several apples - maximum 6-8;
• half a teaspoon of soda.

If we use the specified amount of ingredients, we will have about 8 or even 10 servings of dessert. But these are basic products. Some recipes require adding vanillin, extracts, and other ingredients.

But first we will look at the classic recipe. By the way, you can use fewer eggs in it. But it’s better to take at least 4 pieces as a minimum.

The classic way to make creamy charlotte

The classic charlotte recipe requires a minimum amount of ingredients, the main one of which is butter:

• sour apples – 4-5 pieces;
• eggs – 4 pieces;
• butter – 200 grams;
• flour – 0.25 kg;
• the same amount of granulated sugar;
• baking powder for dough – 5 grams;
• vanilla to taste.

Remove the butter from the refrigerator in advance so that it has time to become soft. Place in a mixer container, add granulated sugar and vanilla. Beat until smooth, add flour and baking powder, continue beating until it becomes a thick syrup.

Let's prepare the filling. We peel the apples, cut them into thin slices, and place them on the bottom of a baking dish, previously greased with margarine. Pour the mixture over the fruit, place in a preheated oven, bake for 30 minutes at 180°C, periodically checking for doneness with a match or toothpick.

How to prepare apples

It would also be useful to find out which type of fruit is best suited for charlotte. For example, Russian housewives often prefer Antonovka. In any case, you need to choose firm fruits with elastic skin.

If they are soft, they will add extra moisture to the dough. It is best, according to culinary experts, to use green apples with a pleasant aroma for charlotte.

So, we have prepared the fruits. Now we take our apples and peel them. Cut out the core and seeds. Then cut into thin slices. Some housewives practice chopping into cubes. But it is the apple slices that better “give off” the aroma and juice.

The biscuit charlotte then simply melts in your mouth. In addition, if you cut the apples large, they will not have time to bake and will remain hard. By the way, first you need to deal with the fruits, and then prepare the dough. In this case, it will not have time to settle.

Apples that are too sweet should also not be used. Charlotte should have a piquant sourness. Otherwise it will come out too cloying.

If you still had to deal with sweet apples, add some sour berries. Then the taste will be very balanced. And the inherent aroma of the dessert will remain.

How to prepare biscuit dough for charlotte with apples. Stage one: proteins

In order for the base of our dessert to turn out, you need to follow all the necessary instructions. After all, biscuit dough is delicate, which means it is very capricious. As a rule, it is made with eggs. But to make the perfect sponge cake, we must first separate the whites from the yolks. This is the first secret of the test.

Then we start beating the whites. When the mass increases in size and becomes fluffy, add half a glass of sugar. Let's continue whisking. Now let's bring our proteins to a state that in cooking is called strong or steep peaks.

This means that if you turn the mass over, it will remain in place. The whites should be thick, with sharp “slides” rising on their surface. To achieve this, it is better to add a pinch of salt, lemon juice or acid to the whipping mixture.

If you don’t get “sharp peaks,” it means that the mixer beaters were not very clean or that yolk particles got into the whites. But it happens that housewives simply despair in the first minutes. Therefore, advice to novice cooks - beat further until it comes out as desired.

Charlotte with apples on curd dough

Today our task is to prepare a traditional apple pie using cottage cheese dough. This is our usual charlotte. But this time we will diversify it a little with a new ingredient - cottage cheese. As a result, a very quick and simple tea pie will appear on the table. I often make apple pies because I love them so much, especially in the season when the apples on the shelves are natural and inexpensive.

• 200 g of cottage cheese (of course, it’s better to buy homemade cottage cheese, but store-bought cottage cheese will do, as long as it’s full-fat);
• 4 chicken eggs;
• 150 g sugar;
• a pinch of vanillin or a full bag of vanilla sugar;
• 2 apples;
• 3 tbsp. l. sour cream;
• 200 g 1st grade flour;
• 1 pack of baking powder;
• 1 pinch of fine salt;
• 1 tbsp. vegetable oil;
• 1 tbsp. powdered sugar.

After mixing salt and sugar, add eggs and beat the mixture for 5 minutes.

Next you need to add sour cream and cottage cheese. And continue whisking the ingredients for several minutes.

As with any baked goods, you need to sift the flour. This fills it with air and makes the baked goods more airy. Next, you need to add baking powder and carefully mix all the ingredients.

The mixture will be slightly runny. It needs to be poured into a baking dish. And place the apples cut into slices on top.

Charlotte is baked for 35-40 minutes at a temperature of 180 degrees, however, you should focus on a specific oven each time.

Stage two

Now let's move on to the yolks. The recipe for sponge charlotte indicates that they should be ground for several minutes with a glass of sugar. You should get a fluffy light foam.

Add the whites to the resulting mass and mix very carefully. Many people advise adding some kind of extract at this stage - vanilla or other fragrance.

Mix flour with soda and sift. Some housewives add a special baking powder for the dough. It is used instead of soda. Add flour to the egg mixture. Once again, carefully mix everything and even beat with a mixer. The dough should be liquid, but not very liquid, the consistency of sour cream or soufflé. For piquancy, you can add orange or lemon zest.

Secrets of making good dough

• Preheat the oven well in advance of baking. And during baking, it is not advisable to open the oven door in case of preparing biscuit dough.
• Typically the pie is baked in a preheated oven for half an hour to forty minutes. Check for doneness using a wooden stick or toothpick by piercing the cake. If it is dry, then the baking is ready.
• If you don’t want to use baking soda or baking powder, just beat the eggs longer and better.
• For a denser foam and fluffy dough consistency, beat the yolks and whites of the eggs separately, but with sugar.
• Egg whites and yolks should be used cold and beaten slowly at first and then at high speed with a mixer.
• For flavor, you can add lemon or orange zest, candied fruits or grated chocolate to the dough.
• The dough can be prepared with sour cream, sour milk or fermented baked milk.

Baking

Finally, we move on to the final stage of preparing the biscuit charlotte.

1. Cover the baking dish with special pastry parchment. You can simply grease it with vegetable oil or butter, or at worst, margarine. You can sprinkle it with starch to remove excess moisture.

2. Place apples there and pour dough on top. It needs to be leveled, spreading over all the apples.

3. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. This needs to be done about 15 minutes before we put the charlotte there. Otherwise, the dessert will burn on top, but will not bake from the inside.

4. Place the form with the dough in the oven. We bake for about 30 minutes. But the more tender your dough, the less time it will take to cook. Therefore, if your sponge cake is simply made with flour and eggs, it can be ready in a quarter of an hour.

The dough should be golden in color. Since sponge cake is a very delicate dessert, it is better not to open the oven during the entire process. When the dough has risen, you can check its readiness with a match.

If it comes out dry, it means you can remove the pan from the oven. In addition, your kitchen will be filled with such an aroma that everyone at home will impatiently gather around the table.

Temperature and baking time for charlotte

Baking charlotte in the oven is a classic way to prepare this pie. This dessert is best baked and browned in the oven. You can bake delicious charlotte in both a gas and electric oven.

Charlotte in a gas oven

It is recommended to bake apple pie in a gas oven at this temperature: 180-200 degrees. On average, a charlotte is baked in a gas oven in 30-40 minutes. If your oven has a convection function, be sure to use it. Convection circulates warm air throughout the oven, which helps bake food evenly. In addition, this makes it possible to bake on two baking sheets at once. The pie in this mode should be cooked at a temperature of 165 degrees.

Charlotte in an electric oven

In an electric oven, cooks bake charlotte at a temperature of 170 degrees for about 45 minutes. It is advisable to place the baking dish on the middle level of the electric oven and turn on the heating on both sides so that the dessert is perfectly baked.

General recommendations

Despite the differences between electric and gas ovens, there are general recommendations for preparing baked goods, including charlottes.

• The oven must be preheated for at least 15-20 minutes before baking. If it is not heated enough, the quality of the baked goods will be affected.
• To avoid overdrying and burning the baked goods, place a container of water in the oven.
• The top and bottom of the apple pie will bake better if you place it in the oven in such a way that there is plenty of free space around it. Due to this, hot air will circulate better.
• Temperature changes can negatively affect baked goods, so don't open the oven too often. It is not recommended to open the oven at all during the first 15 minutes of baking.

How to Serve Dessert

After we have described in detail the recipe for sponge charlotte (you could see the photos of the different stages of preparation above), we will briefly discuss how to deal with it after it has been baked. First of all, you need to remember the secrets of such a test. You don't want the pie to fall into ugly pieces, do you?

Charlotte is allowed to cool slightly. To do this, leave the cake in the form in which it was baked.

Then the charlotte is covered with a dish or plate and turned over. Then the cake will remain at the bottom, and the apples, which by that time will have already turned into puree, will be at the top.

Then the pie is cut into portions. Are you serving charlotte on a holiday table? You can flavor each serving with a scoop of ice cream or sour cream. They will highlight the taste of the pie.

The cream can be prepared with a mixer from a glass of full-fat (at least 30%, or even better - high-quality country) sour cream and 4 tablespoons of powdered sugar. All this needs to be whipped until the mass thickens to sharp peaks.

How to cook “Charlotte in butter with apples”

Prepare all the necessary ingredients. Wash and dry the apples.

Grease a mold (24-26 cm) with a small piece of butter. Cut the apples into small pieces and place on the bottom of the mold.

Place small pieces of butter on top.

Beat eggs with sugar for 3-4 minutes until fluffy. Mix flour with baking powder, sift and prepare the dough. Pour the dough into the mold.

Spread evenly and let sit for 5-7 minutes. During this time, heat the oven to 180 degrees and bake for 30-35 minutes.

Using a silicone spatula, peel the charlotte from the sides of the mold, turn it over, cool and serve!

Enjoy your tea!

More nutritious dough

It was mentioned above that the classic recipe for charlotte with apples, prepared on biscuit dough, does not involve the use of butter or sour cream. But recently, varieties of this baking have appeared.

For example, at the kneading stage, some housewives advise adding two or three tablespoons of sour cream or mayonnaise to the dough for piquancy. Other recipes suggest putting pieces of butter on top before baking and sprinkling with sugar - preferably brown cane sugar.

The option of preparing charlotte with kefir is also interesting. They say that this dough turns out tastier than a regular sponge cake. A glass of this product is mixed with soda and then added to the beaten whites and yolks. Sometimes grated cottage cheese is added to the dough.

Classic biscuit dough recipe

Kitchen appliances and utensils: deep bowl, glass, mixer.

Ingredients

Step-by-step preparation

1. Separate the whites from the yolks of four chicken eggs into a bowl.

2. Add 100-150 grams of sugar to the proteins. Using a mixer, beat the whites with sugar until foamy.

3. Then add four yolks and beat the egg mixture with a mixer again until smooth.

4. While whisking, gradually add 130 grams of flour. Simple charlotte dough is ready! All that remains is to pour the chopped apples into the baking sheet and bake in the oven for half an hour at a temperature of 160º C.

Video recipe

Make sure this recipe for charlotte dough with apples is easy to prepare. The most important thing is that the yolk separates well and does not mix with the whites, then you will get a lush and beautiful white foam.

Variations

There are endless debates about how to serve charlotte. Some people think it should be sprinkled with powdered sugar or syrup. Others think it's delicious anyway.

There are many recipes for biscuit charlotte with apples. The basic instructions can be varied with all sorts of additives. Apples are often topped with poppy seeds, raisins or nuts and sprinkled with cinnamon.

It happens that pieces of chocolate are added inside. You can also add banana puree to the dough. If you cut the charlotte in half and spread it with some cream, you will get a real cake.

You can also replace apples with peaches, pears, or make a pie from a mixture of fruits. They also offer to make desserts with berries – raspberries, cranberries or cherries. They acquire a unique aroma.

Charlotte can be cooked in a slow cooker, microwave or bread maker. In a word, this dessert just requires determination, a little culinary skill and imagination.