Skip to main content
Dessert

Charlotte Busse

A chilled dessert made with Savoy biscuits, whipped cream, and a sponge cake topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Charlotte Busse

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the mold

  1. Brush the edges of the Savoy biscuits with egg white and line the bottom of a round mold, placing them like a star or rosette.

  2. Stand the biscuits upright around the edge, ensuring they are closely packed so the egg white connects them.

  3. Place the mold in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 5 minutes to dry the egg.

Make the filling

  1. Whisk the cream with powdered sugar, flavoring, and melted isinglass until stiff.

  2. Fill the charlotte with the whipped cream and cover with a slice of sponge cake cut to fit the mold.

Chill and serve

  1. Chill the charlotte in ice until ready to serve.

  2. Turn the charlotte onto a dish, remove the mold, and serve.

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 + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Biscuit + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together422 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Biscuit + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Savoy biscuits
Form the outer shell and hold the charlotte's shape once set.
Cream
Whipped to stiffness, it forms the light, creamy body of the filling.
Isinglass
Gelatin-like setting agent that helps the whipped cream hold its shape when chilled.
Egg white
Acts as a glue that binds the biscuits together along the mold.

The step that matters

Whisk the cream until stiff. Cream must be whipped to the right stiffness so it holds shape when filled and chilled. Under-whipped cream stays runny and can collapse, while over-whipping can turn it grainy and separate.

“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.

You might also like

Baking Powder BiscuitBaking Powder Biscuit119 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesSour Milk BiscuitSour Milk Biscuit27 recipesButter BiscuitButter Biscuit8 recipes