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Dessert

Charlotte Russe

A chilled gelatinous cream dessert lined with ladies' fingers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 ↓

Charlotte Russe

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Whip the cream until very light.

  2. Dissolve the gelatine in a small amount of cold water, then add to ¼ cup boiling water.

  3. Line a dish or mold with ladies' fingers.

Assemble and set

  1. Mix the dissolved gelatine with the whipped cream until it begins to thicken.

  2. Pour the mixture into the mold.

  3. Optionally, add a layer of lemon or wine jelly to the mold first and let it stiffen before adding the cream.

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

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

  2. Cream + sherrytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,038 recipes

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

  3. Cream + winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Sherry + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Wine + sugartop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together9,581 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rich cream
Whipped to trap air, giving the dessert its light, airy body.
Sheet gelatine
Sets the whipped cream so the charlotte holds its shape when unmolded.
Ladies' fingers
Sponge biscuits that line the dish and give the dessert structure and a soft, cake-like edge.
Sherry wine
Adds aroma and a mild, fruity flavour to the cream.

The step that matters

Mix the gelatine into the cream at the right moment. Gelatine must be fully dissolved and mixed in just as the cream begins to thicken. If it is too cold, it forms lumps or strings; if the cream has already stiffened, it will not blend evenly and the dessert may set unevenly.

“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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