Apple Charlotte with Passion Fruit Ice Cream

Why is a charlotte called a charlotte?   I wish I knew!   A charlotte is a delicious hot pudding of stewed fruit baked in a buttery, crispy bread case, perfect for these wintry days.   I made several little ones, and felt they were a definite improvement on the traditional larger one!  This is photographed with passion fruit ice cream, gently smothered with a passion fruit sauce.  What a fabulous combination...  My pudding-loving husband felt this was a winner.   I also experimented by using honey instead of sugar in the charlotte, especially for Francis, who loves puddings, but cannot eat sugar.  

Apple Charlotte with Passion Fruit Ice Cream

Apple Charlotte

6 pieces of thick white bread 

Up to 12 oz/350g peeled weight of cooking apples

(you can add other fruit – apricots, blackberries)

spices to add spice to life!  (I used star anise and cinnamon)

Zest and juice of ½ lemon

Sugar (or honey) to taste

4oz/110g butter, melted

6 mini tins/moulds

Preheat the oven to 180 deg C.  Cut up and stew the fruit in a pan, together with the spices, lemon zest and juice, and the honey/sugar.   Cut the crusts off the bread and make breadcrumbs with the crusts (you will only need up to 2 tbsp of crumbs, so you can freeze the rest for a treacle tart).  Butter 6 mini pudding tins (or double the quantity of fruit and use a 6” cake tin/charlotte mould).   If you are making mini charlottes, take a serrated knife, slip the knife sideways between the thick slice and make two very thin slices.   Repeat with the rest of the bread.  Dip each crustless piece of bread into the melted butter and then line the tins.  Top tip - the first piece should be the same shape as the base of the little tins.  

When the fruit is nearly cooked, but hasn’t completely turned to mush, add the crumbs and mix it all together.  Remove any large pieces of spice before filling the little moulds with the mixture.  Shape the lid piece of bread before dipping it into the melted butter.   Put the little moulds on a baking tray, and cook until the bread on the top is golden brown.   Unmould and serve hot.

Passion Fruit Ice Cream and Passion Fruit Sauce

12 passion fruit

2 lemons

8oz/225g caster sugar

1 pint/450ml double cream

½ tsp salt

Use the lemon ice cream recipe on my blog:

http://katespuddings.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/lemon-ice-cream-in-brandysnap-baskets.html  substituting the juice from 4 passion fruits for 1 of the lemons and omitting the lemon zest.

To make the passion fruit sauce, take 8 passion fruit (they are tiny!) and scoop out the pips.  Sieve as much juice as you can from the unrewarding little things, add a little sugar and water, and gently simmer until the sugar has dissolved.  Pour over the ice cream.