Skip to main content
Dessert

Farina Charlotte Russe

A custard dessert made with milk, eggs, farina, whisky, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and whisky work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 287 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Farina Charlotte Russe

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the eggs, sugar, and farina together until smooth.

  2. Pour boiling milk over the mixture and cook until thick, stirring constantly.

  3. Season to taste.

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. Milk + whiskytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together287 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

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

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  4. Whisky + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,008 recipes

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving it body and a thick, smooth texture.
Farina
Thickens the custard as it cooks in the hot milk, giving it body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, which thickens when heated with the eggs and farina.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps keep the beaten eggs smooth.

The step that matters

Pour boiling milk over the mixture and cook until thick, stirring constantly. Eggs can scramble if heated too quickly or left unstirred. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly, so the eggs and farina thicken the custard smoothly rather than curdling.

“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

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes