Parisian charlotte

Crack the eggs into a deep bowl, add salt, and beat with a mixer on high speed until the mixture turns pale. It's important to use eggs at room temperature, so remove them from the refrigerator beforehand.

Add regular and vanilla sugar to the beaten eggs. Beat for another 3-4 minutes until fluffy. The amount of sugar in this recipe is calculated for sweet and tart apples. If your apples are tart, feel free to increase the amount of sugar. As for the vanilla sugar, you can replace it with a pinch of vanillin.

Add milk and melted butter, cooled to room temperature, to the egg-sugar mixture. The milk should also be at room temperature. Otherwise, the dough won't rise during baking, and instead of being airy, you'll end up with a dense cake.

Add the lemon zest. Mix with a mixer at low speed until smooth. It's important, if you're grating the zest yourself, to avoid getting the white part of the zest on the grater. Otherwise, it can impart an unpleasant bitterness to baked goods.

Sift the flour into the dough in two stages, mixing thoroughly with a mixer until smooth. The dough will be quite runny. Don't be lazy about sifting the flour, as this will prevent lumps from forming and will also introduce oxygen, which will help the baked goods rise.

Peel the apples and cut them into thin slices. Add lemon juice to prevent them from browning. To make the process easier, you can use the coarse side of a regular grater.

When the apples are done, add baking powder to the dough. Stir. Baking powder begins to leaven in a moist environment, so it should be added just before baking.

Mix the dough and apples. The result is a thick apple mixture, with each piece of fruit coated in dough.

Prepare the baking pan. Line the bottom with parchment paper, grease the sides with butter and sprinkle with flour, and wrap the top in foil. Pour the batter into the pan and smooth it out with a spatula so the apples are evenly and tightly distributed.