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Dessert

Charlotte Kusse

A chilled cream dessert made with finger biscuits, double cream, sugar, isinglass, milk, and maraschino.

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 Kusse

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mold

  1. Line the bottom and sides of a plain mold with trimmed finger biscuits.

Make the cream filling

  1. Beat the double cream until frothy and sweeten with sugar.

  2. Dissolve the isinglass in the milk and mix in the maraschino.

  3. Combine the cream mixture with the isinglass mixture.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into the mold and set it on ice for a couple of hours.

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

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

  2. Cream + biscuittop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. Sugar + biscuittop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Milk + biscuittop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,332 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Double cream
Whipped to form the light, rich body of the dessert.
Isinglass
Gelatine-like setting agent that firms the cream so it holds its shape when turned out.
Finger biscuits
Form the outer structure and edge of the charlotte around the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream.
Maraschino
Adds aromatic, sweet-sour cherry flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Dissolve the isinglass fully before combining. Isinglass sets only when it is completely dissolved and evenly distributed. Lumps or uneven mixing leave weak, patchy areas, so the charlotte may not hold its shape when turned out.

“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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