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Dessert

Charlotte De Russie

A chilled dessert made with ladyfingers, gelatin, whipped cream, sugar, egg whites, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Charlotte De Russie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dish

  1. Grease a tin dish with butter.

  2. Line the sides and bottom with lady fingers or light sponge cake.

  3. Soak the gelatine in a little milk.

Make the filling

  1. Whip the cream until frothy.

  2. Add sugar to the whipped cream.

  3. If the gelatine is not dissolved, heat it for a minute.

  4. Once cooled, mix the gelatine into the cream.

  5. Add the beaten egg whites and vanilla, then pour into the prepared dish.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they lighten the filling and add airy structure as it sets.
Heavy cream
Whipped to trap air, it gives the filling its light, creamy body and moisture.
Gelatine
Sets the cream filling so it holds its shape when chilled and sliced.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and helps the whipped mixture hold together.
Lady fingers or light sponge cake
Forms the outer lining, giving the charlotte its structure and soaking up little moisture from the filling.

The step that matters

Dissolve and cool the gelatine before mixing. Gelatine must be fully dissolved, then cooled until just lukewarm, before it goes into the cream. Undissolved gelatine leaves rubbery specks, while hot gelatine can deflate the whipped cream and stop the filling from setting evenly.

“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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