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Dessert

Burnt Almond Charlotte

A chilled dessert of burnt almonds, sugar, milk, egg yolks, gelatin, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Burnt Almond Charlotte

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almond base

  1. Soak the gelatin in cold water for 2 hours.

  2. In a saucepan, heat sugar until it becomes liquid and dark.

  3. Add chopped almonds and stir for 2 minutes.

  4. Cool the mixture on a platter.

  5. Break the cooled almond mixture in a mortar.

Make the custard

  1. Combine the broken mixture with milk.

  2. Cook the mixture for 10 minutes.

  3. Beat egg yolks with sugar.

  4. Add the beaten egg yolks to the mixture along with the gelatin.

  5. Stir the mixture until smooth.

  6. Remove the mixture from heat.

  7. Set the mixture in ice water.

Set and serve

  1. Beat the mixture until it thickens.

  2. Fold in whipped cream.

  3. Pour the mixture into molds.

  4. Refrigerate the molds until firm.

  5. Optionally, place sponge cake around 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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Almond + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  5. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet almonds
Provide the nutty flavour and texture that defines the charlotte.
Gelatin
Sets the custard so it holds its shape when unmolded.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard.
Whipped cream
Adds airiness and lightness to the set mixture.
Sugar
Sweetens the dish and, caramelised, gives the burnt flavour.

The step that matters

Caramelising the sugar. Sugar heated past liquid turns dark quickly and can scorch and turn bitter if left unattended. The dark caramel gives the burnt flavour, so it should be taken to a deep amber and stopped before it burns.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pecansfits about as well
  3. Pistachiofits less well
  4. Chestnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, egg, 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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