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Dessert

Charlotte Polonaise

A layered sponge cake with chocolate and almond creams, topped with sherry wine and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and gelatin 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 Polonaise

Ingredients

Directions

Make the creams

  1. Boil the cream over low heat.

  2. Beat the egg yolks and stir them into the boiling cream until smooth.

  3. Let the mixture boil for 10 minutes, then divide it into two saucepans.

  4. In one saucepan, mix in the chocolate, powdered sugar, and broken macaroons.

  5. In the other saucepan, add the pounded almonds, pounded citron, and powdered sugar; flavor with bitter almond.

  6. Stir both mixtures well and let them come to a boil, then set aside to cool.

Assemble and finish

  1. Cut the sponge cake into ½‑inch thick layers.

  2. Spread one layer with chocolate cream and the next with almond cream, alternating until all ingredients are used.

  3. Pour the sherry wine over the cake and top with chocolate icing.

  4. Garnish with blanched almonds and place in a flat glass dish.

  5. Surround the cake with whipped cream thickened with gelatin, leaving the top of the cake visible.

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 + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Chocolate + almondtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,733 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cream
Forms the rich body of both fillings and sets softly once cooled.
Egg yolks
Thicken the boiled cream into a smooth, custard-like filling.
Chocolate
Adds deep flavor and firms the chocolate cream as it cools.
Blanched almonds
Pounded into the almond cream, adding nutty flavor and body.
Sponge cake
Provides the layered base that soaks up the sherry and holds the creams.
Gelatin
Sets the whipped cream so it holds its shape around the cake.

The step that matters

Boil the cream with egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken as they are heated, but if the cream boils too hard after they are added, the yolks can scramble and leave the filling grainy. Stirring until smooth helps keep it even.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, egg, chocolate, sugar, sherry, wine, gelatin):

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Hazelnutfits less well
  4. Cocoafits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg, chocolate, sugar, sherry, wine, gelatin. 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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