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Dessert

Charlotte Russe

A chilled custard dessert made with sponge cake, milk, gelatin, eggs, whipped cream, and sweetened to taste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Gelatin and cream match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,628 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Charlotte Russe

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mold

  1. Line a mold or individual molds with lady fingers or sponge cake, securing them with a little egg white.

Make the custard

  1. In a double boiler, heat 1 pint of sweet milk. Sweeten and flavor to taste.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon of dissolved gelatin and 6 beaten eggs to the milk mixture.

  3. Thicken the mixture as you would for boiled custard.

  4. Once the filling is nearly cold, fold in nearly 1 quart of whipped cream.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into the mold and refrigerate.

  2. Before serving, dress with additional whipped 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. Gelatin + creamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Gelatin + sugartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

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

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Lady fingers or sponge cake
Forms the outer lining that holds the filling's shape when unmolded.
Eggs
Thicken the milk custard and help set the filling as it cools.
Gelatin
Sets the filling so it holds its shape when chilled.
Whipped cream
Adds airy lightness and richness to the filling.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture as you would for boiled custard. Eggs thicken when heated gently; if the custard gets too hot it can curdle or scramble. Keep the heat low in the double boiler and stir steadily until it coats a spoon.

“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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