The charm of a baked apple Charlotte, that quintessentially British hot pudding, lies in the thrifty trick of transforming lemons into lemonade. Take day-old white bread, mould slices of it into a round casing, cemented with lashings of butter, fill it with fruit and bake it until the bread is golden and the centre explosively pulpy. Traditionally filled with apple, variations include almost any fruit, from bananas and berries to pears or pineapples, but why muck around with British pud lore?
It's a lore that extends back to the late 18th century when the Charlotte made its first appearance in literature, not as a recipe, as one would expect, but in Joel Barlow's aptly titled 1796 ode : "The Charlotte brown, within whose crusty sides a belly soft the pulpy apple hides". Nearly a decade later, the first recipe for an apple Charlotte appeared in Maria Eliza Rundell's . And it's a recipe that has remained unchanged since.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that this so-called pud was named in honour of Queen Charlotte, whose reign coincided with the emergence of the sweet treat. She was reputed to possess quite a hankering for a good, crisp apple and to ensure a paradise's supply of the fruit, the keen amateur botanist fashioned herself as the foremost patron of apple growers.
Cox's orange pippins are, indubitably, the British apple of choice, requiring less additional sugar to attain syrupy stewed sweetness, but for us anitpodeans, the reliable golden delicious will have to suffice. No matter which apple you choose, this pud is tip top (and we don't mean the bread).