Apple and Cherry Charlotte: Quick Step-by-Step Recipe with Photos

Do you want something sweet with your tea, but have no desire to go to the store? There is a solution: you can make a dessert yourself with a minimal amount of ingredients!

So, we had a few apples, some cherries in their juice, eggs, sugar, and flour. With such a set, you can easily prepare a delicious dessert – a charlotte. Essentially, this is a sponge cake batter, into which we will add whipped egg whites and fruits, but we'll go through everything step by step.

We will need 2 clean dry containers (in our case – a bowl from a food processor and a stainless steel bowl). We will separate the egg whites in the first, and the yolks in the second. For this, take an egg, gently tap it in the middle with a knife. Try to break it so that you get two equal halves of the shell. After that, carefully start pouring the yolk from one half of the shell into the other. Do these manipulations over the bowl of the food processor, where the egg whites will drain. The yolks are separated into the bowl.

When we finish with the “separation,” we add 3 tablespoons of sugar to each container. We beat the egg whites until soft peaks in the food processor (this will take 5-7 minutes), and for the yolks – we add a pinch of sugar and start beating with a mixer.

As a result, the mixture will change color and consistency – it will resemble mayonnaise. And it will increase several times in volume.

Sift the flour and gradually add it to the bowl with the yolks. Carefully, slowly, and thoroughly mix with a silicone spatula. Immerse it to the bottom of the bowl, then lift it up. This technique will help retain air bubbles in the batter. They will lift the batter during baking, resulting in a tender and airy sponge cake.

In the bowl with the egg whites, we start adding the already mixed yolk batter. We do this also with a silicone spatula, without haste and with similar movements as in the previous step.

That's it, our perfected sponge cake batter is ready.

Probably the shortest step in the preparation. Just take the apples, wash them, and cut them. We cut them into small cubes, but you can also slice them, whatever you prefer. The kitchen is a space for creativity ;)

We also prepare the cherries, placing them in a small container and letting the excess juice drain, so that our charlotte doesn’t turn out too “wet”.

You can make the pie without cherries. In our case, it was decided to use the remaining cherries from the previous “session” of pie baking.

Take a cake pan. To prevent our charlotte from sticking to the sides during baking, we will use a simple and effective method of preparing the pan – the so-called French shirt. It’s quite simple and effective: take 10 g of butter, grease the entire pan, then sprinkle with flour in an even layer. The leftovers – pour out.

Pour the batter into the pan, then arrange the apples and cherries in any order. With a spatula, gently “sink” the fruits into the batter. That’s it, the charlotte is ready for baking.

To ensure our charlotte retains its volume, tenderness, and airiness, there are 2 secrets:

preheat the oven to the working temperature (in our case – 170 degrees, convection mode), and do not open the oven door for at least 30 minutes during baking.

Place the pan with the charlotte on a baking sheet, set it for 45 minutes. You can easily check the readiness of the pastry with a wooden skewer or match. Just insert the match or skewer into the pie approximately in the middle. If the wood comes out dry, the charlotte is ready.

On the first test, in our case, the skewer was in the batter, so we left the charlotte in the oven for another 10 minutes, after which we tested it again.

Let the finished charlotte cool a bit, then using a dessert knife (or any other knife with a narrow blade), go around the edges of the pan so that the pie can be easily removed.

Flip the pie onto a plate, sprinkle with powdered sugar, brew some tea, and enjoy ;)