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Dessert

Charlotte Printanière

A layered sponge cake dessert with royal icing, cake strips, crushed ice, and Bavarian cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Charlotte Printanière

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cake

  1. Bake a large butter sponge cake as described on page 22.

  2. Let the cake cool.

  3. Trim the cake.

  4. Cut a round piece the same size as the bottom of the charlotte mold.

  5. Cover the round piece with white royal icing.

  6. Cut two strips of cake, one white and one pink, into 1 cm wide pieces at an angle.

  7. Arrange the strips on a tray, ensuring you have 16 to 18 pieces.

  8. Let the icing dry.

  9. Trim the strips evenly on both sides.

Assemble the mold

  1. Line the bottom of the mold with parchment paper.

  2. Place the iced round on top.

  3. Position the strips against the inner walls of the mold, alternating colors and tilting them slightly.

  4. Pack the strips tightly to support each other.

  5. Fill the mold with crushed ice.

Fill and layer

  1. Prepare a small batch of Bavarian cream with wild strawberries.

  2. Prepare a small batch of Bavarian cream with vanilla.

  3. Layer the Bavarian creams alternately in the mold.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Cream and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,301 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter sponge cake
Provides a light, sturdy structure that holds the shape of the charlotte.
Royal icing
Forms a firm white surface on the cake round that sets as it dries.
Bavarian cream
Sets into a creamy, smooth filling that gives the charlotte its body and flavor.
Wild strawberries
Adds fruity aroma and sweetness to one of the Bavarian creams.

The step that matters

Pack the strips tightly against the mold. Tightly packed cake strips support each other and hold their shape against the wall, so the pattern stays neat and the Bavarian cream does not leak or shift when unmolded.

Swap the vanilla

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, cream):

  1. Strawberryfits about as well
  2. Vanillathe original
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Raspberryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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