Untested - Apple Charlotte

Food in England, Dorothy Hartley, p 417

"Butter a piedish and cover thickly with crumbs of stale bread, dust with nutmeg or spice. Peel, core, and chop up enough windfall apples to fill the dish to overflowing, and pack them in with a few crumbs, sugar, dots of butter, and, if possible, scraps of candied lemon peel. Cover the top thickly with more crumbs and dot with butter, and bake, covered the first part of the time; when the apples soften, remove the cover and let the crumbs crisp and brown. This dish should turn out a neat spicy brown loaf full of apple pulp. It is impossible to time exactly, as so much depends on the apples' cooking qualities; dried apple pulp takes about 30 minutes. Served with hot chocolate sauce."

NOTE: most recipe sources recommend pre-cooking the apple, melting the butter and dipping the lining bread with it, etc. I will try to follow Dorothy's instructions to see how the apple cooks and the bread browns without pre-cooking, melting and dipping. I suspect it will take much longer than 30 minutes to cook with raw ingredients! Many sources also recommend a higher temperature. I will keep it low so that the apple inside has a chance to cook.
- http://www.chezm.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=222:apple-charlotte-a-la-julia-child&catid=47:desserts&Itemid=57
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/applecharlotte_81084
- http://chefgeorgehirsch.com/dailyfood/classic-apple-charlotte.html

6 medium apples, peeled and cored and chopped quite small
10-15 slices stale bread, cut quite thin
1⁄8 tsp nutmeg
1⁄2 cup sugar
1⁄2 cup butter
A little candied lemon peel, minced (optional)
Optional - Rum or Calvados

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350F.
2. Butter a baking dish (I use oven-ready soup pots, and decide how much of each ingredient I need to fill it. There are Charlotte molds if you don't already have one).
3. Line the dish with thin slices of stale bread OR, crumble the bread and pack it onto the sides, whichever works best for you. 
4. In a small bowl mix together the sugar, nutmeg and candied lemon peel.
5. In layers, add the apples, remaining bread (crumbled), butter and sugar mixture, until all used up, ending with a bread, butter and sugar layer on top.
6. Cover and bake for about 20 minutes. Uncover and bake an additional 10 minutes, or until the bread crumbs on top start to brown.
7. Serve with chocolate sauce or custard.