Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓
Burnt Almond Charlotte
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the caramel and almonds
Soak gelatine in cold water for 2 hours.
In a saucepan, heat sugar until it becomes liquid and dark. Add chopped almonds and stir for 2 minutes.
Turn mixture onto a platter and let cool. Once cool, break almonds in a mortar.
Make the custard
Mix the broken almonds with milk. Cook the mixture for 10 minutes.
Beat egg yolks with sugar. Add the egg yolk mixture and gelatine to the cooking mixture. Stir until smooth and well dissolved.
Remove from heat. Set the mixture in a basin of ice water. Beat until it begins to thicken.
Assemble and set
Gently fold in whipped cream and pour into molds. Set molds on ice to firm up.
Optionally, place sponge cake around the mold before serving.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,130 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
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Almond + milktop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,800 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,399 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,679 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sweet almonds
- Provide the main nutty flavour and a crunchy, brittle texture once caramelised and broken.
- Gelatine
- Sets the custard so the charlotte holds its shape when turned out of the mold.
- Egg yolks
- Enrich the custard and add richness and body as it cooks and thickens.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the custard that carries the almond flavour.
- Whipped cream
- Adds airy lightness and moisture, softening the set custard into a delicate texture.
- Sugar
- Caramelises to give a deep, bittersweet flavour and sweetens the custard.
The step that matters
Dissolving the gelatine into the hot custard. Gelatine must be fully dissolved in the warm mixture and not allowed to boil or set early, otherwise it can leave lumps or fail to set evenly. Cooling it over ice then stops it setting before the cream is folded in.
Swap the almond
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, milk, egg, cream):
- Almondthe original
- Pecansfits about as well
- Pistachiofits less well
- Chestnutfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, egg, cream. 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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