The spirit of thrift, the soul of indulgence, Old Fashioned Apple Charlotte. Inspired by the Normandy classic, Charlotte aux Pommes, this version skips the formal mould and apple compote in favour of a more relaxed and homey approach—fresh apples, buttered bread, and a tart pan create a rustic, tempting dessert.
A Rustic Apple Dessert Inspired by Classic French Baking
Instead of French precision, we’re leaning into texture and taste. Buttered slices of baguette line the pan, soaking up apple juices and melted butter as they bake into a crisp, golden base. Fresh apples, tossed simply with cinnamon and brown sugar, generously fill the pan all topped with buttered breadcrumbs to bake into a craggy, crunchy top.
When Buttered Bread Replaces Pastry (and Nobody Misses It)
The result lands somewhere between apple pie and bread pudding, with better contrast and a little more character. This is the kind of dessert you make when apples are plentiful, but needing to be used, the bread is a day past its prime, and you want something that feels nostalgic without being overly complicated.
An Old-School Apple Dessert Made with What You Have
That’s how I got here. A beautiful bag of apples from my neighbour’s tree that had been languishing in the fridge for far too long because I had a million ideas on how I should cook them, but no desire to make pastry, or a cake base. I’d made a massive batch of Apple Crisp just weeks before they arrived and so there they sat. Until the day I decided to borrow from culinary school training and make a buttery, crumbly version to use up both a stale baguette and leftover breadcrumbs.
Crispy, Buttery, and Perfectly Imperfect Apple Charlotte
Do you need to use baguette? No. You can use dry bread of any kind. The better and more crusty the bread, the better your results. I’ll be frank, I didn’t measure the cinnamon. I just added cinnamon until it tasted as cinnamon-y as I like it. This is truly the kind of recipe you can freelance. Measure your cinnamon with your heart!
It’s county-style, assembles in minutes, deeply buttery, and practically begging for a scoop of vanilla or caramel laced ice cream to melt into all those crispy bits. Serve it warm. Spoon it, don’t slice it. Let it be imperfect—that’s the point. Because not everything needs to be prefect – but it does need to be delicious!
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Old Fashioned Apple Charlotte
- Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
Description
Borrowing from the French classic, this Old Fashioned Apple Charlotte is a rustic, country-style dessert brimming with fresh apples, buttered baguette, breadcrumbs, cinnamon, and brown sugar—crispy, buttery, and perfect with ice cream!
Ingredients
- 1/2 baguette, sliced into half inch rounds (enough to cover the bottom of your pan)
- 6 to 7 baking apples, peeled, cored, and sliced
- Juice of one lemon
- 1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon, plus more for the top
- 3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted, divided
- 1 cup fine breadcrumbs or panko
- pinch of salt
- additional butter, for greasing the pan
Instructions
- Peel and cut your apples, tossing with lemon juice to avoid browning due to oxidation. Reserve.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (190°C). Generously butter a nine-inch tart pan.
- Line the bottom of the pan with your baguette slices then brush with melted butter. Tear pieces if there’s extra space and fill any gaps. If your pan is deep enough, you can line the sides too.
- Toss the breadcrumbs with a few tablespoons of melted butter until evenly coated. Add a couple of handfuls of buttered breadcrumbs to the bottom of your pan and distribute to fill any gaps between the slices of bread. Press lightly. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, toss the cubed (or sliced) apples with 1/2 cup brown sugar, cinnamon, and a pinch of salt. Add cinnamon to taste. (I wanted it VERY heavy with cinnamon.)
- Scoop the apples into the prepared pan, pressing lightly so they settle into the bread lining.
- Add 1 tablespoon brown sugar to buttered breadcrumbs Sprinkle and press, over the apples. Add generous sprinkling of cinnamon over the breadcrumbs. Drizzle the remaining melted butter, distributing evenly, over the top.
- Bake for 45 – 60 minutes, until the apples are tender, the top is deeply golden, and the edges are crisp.
- Let rest for 10 minutes before serving. Serve warm, ideally with ice cream, custard or softly whipped cream.
