Sharlotka

What to expect

Taste

Apple, and considerably more of it than any other apple cake. Tart cooking apples soften and go tangy and slightly winey during the bake, and at 800g in an eight-portion cake they are the dominant flavour by a very long way. Against that, the sponge is sweet, eggy and vanilla-scented — 200g of sugar is doing double duty, sweetening a genuinely sour fruit as well as the batter. Cinnamon is warm and is the note that makes it read as Russian rather than as a plain apple cake. Salt at 2g is invisible and stops it tasting flat. There is no butter in the batter at all, which is worth noticing: this is a fat-free sponge and its lightness comes entirely from air.

Aroma

Baking apple and cinnamon, which is one of the best smells a domestic oven produces and fills a house for an hour. The finished cake smells of apple rather than of cake, which is a fair guide to what it tastes like.

Texture

Soft, moist and slightly springy where the sponge is, and yielding where the apple is, with the two roughly equal by volume. It is much wetter than a plain sponge and much lighter than an apple pie. There is no crumb to speak of because there is not enough batter to build one, and a slice needs a plate rather than a napkin.

Sound

Only the whisk, which changes audibly as the eggs and sugar thicken — from a thin splashing to a heavier, quieter slapping. That change is the ribbon stage arriving and is a better cue than a clock.

How the flavour moves

Cinnamon and sugar first. Then apple, tart and abundant, taking over completely. The sponge is a background rather than a flavour. The finish is fruit and a lingering warmth from the cinnamon, and it is short and clean, which is why a second slice is easy.

Serve it

Warm is best, and room temperature is fine. Cold from a fridge it is dense and the apple flavour is muted.

Goes with

Nothing, really, and it is designed to be eaten on its own with tea. Smetana or crème fraîche if you want something, which adds acidity rather than sweetness and works better than cream. Strong black tea, which is what it is eaten with in Russia. Where it fails is with custard or ice cream on the day it is baked, which drown it — those belong on day-two sharlotka, which is wetter and heavier.

Cook's notes

Difficulty

Easy, with one thing to do properly. If you have ever made a whisked sponge you already know it; if not, this is a good and forgiving place to learn.

Cost

Very low. Four eggs, some flour and sugar, and apples.

Equipment

An electric whisk or a stand mixer, because six to eight minutes of whisking by hand is a genuinely miserable job. A 22cm springform tin.

When to make it

Autumn, when apples are everywhere and cheap. Any time of year in practice.

Best season

Genuinely seasonal, and this is a cake that exists because of an autumn apple harvest.

You know it is done when

The foam is ready when a drizzle from the beaters sits on the surface for about three seconds before sinking — the ribbon stage. The cake is done when it is deep gold, springy in the centre, and a skewer comes out with no wet batter on it. Apple juice on the skewer is fine and expected.

And it feels like

Springy in the middle. There is so much fruit that it will always feel wetter than a plain sponge, which is correct.

Food safety

Nothing to manage.

Where it goes wrong

Under-whisking the eggs, which is the fault — this cake has no butter and almost no baking powder, and the air whisked into the eggs is the entire lift. Cutting the apples too early, so their juice makes a sodden layer at the bottom. Over-folding after the flour goes in, which knocks the air back out. Reducing the apple because the batter looks insufficient. And cutting it before it has had its thirty minutes in the tin, when the fruit-heavy crumb is still fragile.

If it does go wrong

Dense and rubbery: under-whisked, or over-folded, or the eggs were cold. Sodden bottom: the apples sat cut for too long, or their juice was not tipped off. Dark top and wet middle: oven too hot; foil over it and carry on. Collapsed in the middle: taken out too early. Too sour: the apples were very tart, which is not a fault — dust more icing sugar or serve smetana beside it.

Making it ahead

Not really. It is at its best the day it is baked and takes an hour and a half from a standing start.

Keeping it

It is a one-day cake and the recipe is honest about why: the fruit goes on releasing moisture into the crumb overnight and by the second day it is closer to a pudding. That is not unpleasant, it is simply a different thing.

Reheating

A slice warmed in a low oven is very good.

Freezing

It freezes acceptably for a month, wrapped, and is best reheated rather than thawed.

Leftovers

Day-two sharlotka is a pudding rather than a cake and is good with custard, which is a legitimate use rather than a rescue.

Scaling it

Halves and doubles cleanly, keeping the fruit-to-batter ratio. A deeper cake needs a lower oven and considerably longer.

Substitutions

Tart apples are specified for a reason — Bramley, Granny Smith or a sharp eating apple. Sweet apples make a cloying cake and, more practically, they collapse: a cooking apple holds its shape better than most eating varieties at this length of bake. Pears work and are wetter. Plums are excellent and are a genuine variation.

Dietary swaps

Vegetarian. Not vegan — the four whisked eggs are the entire structure and nothing substitutes for them. Not gluten-free as written, though the low flour proportion makes a gluten-free blend work better here than in most cakes. Contains cereals containing gluten, eggs and milk, all declared.

Shopping for it

Tart apples — Bramley if you are in Britain, Granny Smith otherwise. Eggs at room temperature, which means taking them out an hour ahead.

Keeping the cost down

It is already almost free, and it is the best possible use of a glut of apples or a bag of windfalls. Bruised and imperfect fruit is fine here, since it is all going into a batter.

Sustainability

Very good — no butter, no cream, a large quantity of a cheap seasonal fruit, and a recipe that welcomes imperfect produce.

Nutrition

Around 280 calories a slice, which is genuinely low for a cake — there is no butter in it at all, and 800g of apple across eight servings brings real fibre. It is one of the lighter things in this collection despite tasting substantial.

Worth it?

Worth it, and it is the easiest good cake here. No butter, no scales strictly needed, one bowl and a whisk, and a result that is genuinely more fruit than cake. Whisk the eggs longer than you think, cut the apples last, and eat it the day you make it.

Where it comes from

Origin

Russia, and the name comes from France by a route nobody has documented.

Also called

Sharlotka — шарлотка.

Said out loud

shar-LOT-ka.

What the name means

From charlotte, the French moulded pudding. The English name Charlotte for that dish is variously attributed — to Queen Charlotte, wife of George III, and to other Charlottes — and none of the derivations is settled.

History

The French charlotte is a completely different object: a mould lined with bread or sponge fingers, filled with fruit compote or bavarois, and turned out. Carême's charlotte russe — sponge fingers round a bavarian cream — is the famous version, and its name is a further complication, since it was created in France and named for Russia rather than the other way round. What Russia calls sharlotka has no mould, no lining and no cream, and how the name attached to an apple sponge is not documented. What is clear is why the cake became ubiquitous: four eggs, a cup of sugar, a cup of flour and whatever apples the dacha produced is a recipe that can be remembered without writing down, needs no butter and no scales, and works with a glut. It is Soviet domestic cooking at its most practical.

Why it matters

It is the cake Russians make, in the way that a Victoria sponge is the cake the British make — the default, the one everybody knows by heart, the thing produced when somebody comes round. Its association with autumn apple gluts and with dacha kitchens is strong.

When it is eaten

Autumn, tea, and any afternoon with visitors.

The traditional way

Whisking whole eggs with sugar to a ribbon and folding flour in — the genoise method, which is French and classical and which arrived in Russian home baking and stayed. There is no creaming and no rubbing in.

How it changed

Baking powder appeared, which is a modern insurance policy rather than the leavening. Otherwise the cake is as simple as it has always been.

Regional variations

Plum, pear and cherry versions are all common. Some versions layer the apples on the bottom of the tin and pour the batter over, so the cake is inverted after baking. Some include soured cream in the batter, which makes a denser, richer cake.

How this version differs

It is orthodox. It adds cinnamon in two places, which is common but not universal, and it is unusually firm about cutting the apples last.

Sources and credit

None. Traditional and unauthored.

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