Here’s my latest creation, Apple Charlotte which was built from 100% scratch. First I had to create a Brioche dough and bake it. Then prepare a Apple Compote for the filling and base of the dish. The whole ordeal took roughly 6hrs to prepare from scratch, assuming you have everything on “Mise en Place” (French, Prepared on stand by).
You may substitute Brioche if you find it too tedious to create with regular bread.
Recipe for Brioche (This should make enough for 2 Charlottes, Please stale the bread for atleast 1-2 days prior to makeing a Charlotte for Stability.)
250 Bread Flour
35 Milk
7 Fresh Yeast /or 3.5 Dry Yeast
7 Salt
25 Sugar
2.5 Eggs
150 Butter, Room Temp
Preheat oven to 350′F, First incorporate all the ingredients without the butter, once you have a dough start to smash in your butter chunks at a time, but keep kneading constantly. The buttering process takes a good rough 10mins so please be patient, The dough will start to feel very soft and stick to surfaces, dont worry, keep kneading it til it starts to separate from the table by itself. A handy tool would be to carry a scraper to occasionally scrape the dough off the table to work it out evenly. Once your dough becomes firmer and retains its shape, shape it into a dome and let it rest for a good hour with plastic wrap on top. After, proof for atleast 1.5hrs or until double in size. Cut up the dough into 100g pieces and one layer them into a breadpan, should resemble flat rolling hills. spray some water ontop and let it sit ontop of the preheated oven with a wet towel ontop. May need to re-hydrate the dough and the towel frequently. Once its all poofy, you may put it into the oven for around 15mins, or until golden brown. If you see your bread producing colour and still soft, wrap with aluminum foil and keep baking until desired firmess. Let it stale for 1-2 Days.
Apple Compote (Can be made in advance or prior to creating the Charlotte):
200 Water
100 Icing Sugar
15 Vanilla sugar (If you have some, if not just take regular sugar and some vanilla extract)
5 Corn Starch
2 Cinnamon*
1 Nutmeg*
2-3 Apples
* To taste.
Slice and dice apples without skin into small pieces, should be around the same size as your pinky nail. Boil water and sugars and place in apples. cook till soft but not broken up. Cool in fridge till ready.
When both Brioche and Apples are ready, you may start the Charlotte itself. You will need:
2 3in Diameter, 2in high steel rings. Easily obtainable from your local cooking store for like 2$ ea.
Plates
If you decied to use regular bread, please butter them on both sides, Brioche does not need to be buttered, unless you want to…and trim them down to 2x 3in circle Base pieces and 1-2 long strips to create a Hockey Puck shell inside the steel rings. Slice the bread pieces thinly as we dont want too much bread, more filling to go around…^^ To make the bread stick to one another, you may use some jam, adds some flavor aswell. once you have your bread pieces, assemble your ring without the top and fill with Apple Compote then close up and bake at 350″F for around 5mins or more, but dont burn it. only give it a nice golden colour.
Your creation is done, you may serve it hot or cold. ^^ Feel free to dress up the plate to your desire.
