Apple Charlotte, the British Dessert Made From Yesterday's Bread and Apples: A Buttered Bread Shell, a Thick Filling and About 50 Minutes in the Oven

The British have a dessert that is, at heart, an admission that bread doesn't get thrown away. It's called apple charlotte: a warm pudding in which slices of buttered bread form a crisp golden shell around soft, almost creamy apple. Turned out of the mould, it keeps the shape of the tin - a cylinder that looks pricier on the plate than it actually is.

The recipe is old. One of the early records is in the book The Art of Cookery Made Easy and Refined by English cook John Mollard from 1802, where a "charlotte of apples" very close to today's version appears. Its origins lie in the cooking of thrift: a way to use up leftover bread and seasonal apples. In Macedonia the same logic gave us pofesni, fried bread slices - the British just went a step further and put the bread in the oven with sugar.

Ingredients (for 6 to 8 servings)

• for the filling: 1.2 kg tart apples (reinette or a similar variety), 70 g unsalted butter, 80 g white sugar, finely grated zest of half a lemon, 1 tablespoon lemon juice and 2 tablespoons water only if needed
• for the shell: 14 to 16 slices of white toast bread, preferably crustless and with a firm crumb, 120 to 150 g melted unsalted butter and 1 tablespoon sugar for sprinkling (optional)
• to serve (optional): custard, lightly whipped cream or vanilla ice cream

The filling is everything. Peel and core the apples and cut them into pieces of 2 to 3 centimetres, as even as possible. In a wide pan over low to medium heat, melt the butter, add the apples, sugar, zest and lemon juice, and cook covered for 15 to 25 minutes, stirring occasionally, until soft. If they stick before releasing their juice, add the water. Then uncover the pan and cook for another 5 to 10 minutes, stirring often, to evaporate the excess liquid. Some of the apples get mashed, some stay in pieces. The filling must be as thick as jam, not watery - that's the one rule you can't break, because a runny filling brings down the whole structure.

The shell. Heat the oven to 200 degrees (180 fan). Grease a deep straight-sided mould, 18 to 20 centimetres in diameter and 7 to 9 high, and put a circle of baking paper on the bottom. Cut the crusts off the bread, cut a few slices into triangles for the base and the rest into wide rectangles tall enough for the sides. Brush each piece with butter on both sides - evenly, but without soaking it. Cover the base with no gaps, and stand the rectangles upright around the sides, slightly overlapping, up to the rim of the mould. The cooled filling goes inside, pressed lightly to push out air pockets, and the top is covered with the remaining bread, again brushed with butter and sprinkled with sugar if you like.

Baking and turning out. Put the mould on a baking tray: 15 minutes at 200 degrees, then another 30 to 40 minutes at 180, around 45 to 55 minutes in total. It's done when the outside is deep gold, with the odd darker spot, and the structure is firm. If the top browns too fast, cover it loosely with foil. Then comes the hardest part - the waiting. The charlotte rests for 15 to 20 minutes, you run a thin knife around the edge, put a plate on top and flip it in one firm movement.

Serve it warm, in slices, with custard, whipped cream or ice cream. If your bread is very fresh and soft, leave the slices out for a few hours to firm up. Day-old bread isn't a problem here but an advantage - and that is the whole philosophy of this dessert.