Charlotte with Apples from Ulyanka

Ulyana began to help me, probably, at the age of one and a half. She still did not really know how to talk, and already from a culinary bag with a star attachment she was putting Viennese cookies on a baking sheet. She knows that if I make a biscuit, then it will need to be soaked in syrup, and is already at the ready with a brush. And more recently, she herself made her first charlotte for dad. Then we ate it all together before going to bed, washed down with milk.

Ingredients

• 4 large apples
• 5 eggs
• 200 g sugar
• 200 g flour
• 10 g vanilla sugar
• 1 tsp soda
• 2 tbsp. l. lemon juice
• pinch of cinnamon
• butter for lubrication
• icing sugar, optional

Directions

1. Peel the apples by removing the core. Cut the pulp into cubes, drizzle with 1.5 tbsp. l. lemon juice and refrigerate.
2. Grease a cake pan with a diameter of 24-26 cm with a thin layer of butter and dust with flour.
3. In a deep bowl, beat eggs with sugar and vanilla sugar for 10 minutes. The mass should double in size, become light and airy. The secret of the correct charlotte, like any biscuit, is precisely in the long whipping.
4. Sift the flour, quench the soda with the remaining lemon juice and add to the flour, add cinnamon there. Gently mix everything with a spatula, being careful not to settle the air mass.
5. Pour the prepared apples into the dough, mix. You can vary the number of apples as you like, but I like it when there are a lot of them. Even if it seems that the dough has just been able to cover all the fruits, do not worry - the biscuit rises well in the oven.
6. Put the finished dough in a mold, level and place in an oven preheated to 180 ° C for 30-40 minutes. Check the readiness with a wooden skewer - it should come out completely dry. Allow the finished charlotte to cool completely in the mold, and then remove it and transfer it to a dish. Sprinkle with icing sugar before serving.