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Dessert

Charlotte Polonaise

A layered sponge cake dessert with chocolate, almond, and citron mixtures, custard, and whipped egg whites, finished with jelly or icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and raspberry match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 552 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Charlotte Polonaise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fillings

  1. In a saucepan, boil ½ pint of sweet milk with 2 ounces of grated chocolate and 2 ounces of white sugar until dissolved.

  2. In another saucepan, mix ½ pint of milk with 4 ounces of finely pounded blanched almonds, 1 dozen blanched bitter almonds, 4 ounces of pounded citron, and 4 ounces of white sugar; boil for a few minutes.

  3. Set both mixtures aside to cool.

Assemble and soak

  1. Wet the sponge cake slices with wine and spread them alternately with the chocolate and almond mixtures, stacking them until the dish is filled.

  2. Pour rich custard over the stacked cake and let it soak.

Finish and rest

  1. Cover with whipped egg whites sweetened with fine sugar and flavored with jelly, or use icing instead.

  2. Prepare the dish an hour or two in advance to allow the icing to become glossy.

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. Almond + raspberrytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together552 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

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

  3. Chocolate + raspberrytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together457 recipes

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

  4. Milk + raspberrytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,014 recipes

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

  5. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Sponge cake
Forms the layers and soaks up wine and custard for a moist, tender structure.
Egg whites
Whipped to a froth, they form a light, airy topping that holds its shape.
Macaroons
Broken into pieces, they add crumbly texture and almond sweetness to the filling.
Almonds
Finely pounded, they thicken the almond mixture and add rich nutty flavor.
Grated chocolate
Melted into the milk, it gives the filling a deep chocolate flavor and color.
Rich custard
Soaks into the stacked cake, adding moisture and richness.

The step that matters

Stacking and soaking the cake. Sponge cake must be wet evenly with wine and then given time to absorb the custard; if it is left too dry or too wet, the layers turn crumbly or soggy.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, chocolate, sugar, wine, egg, raspberry):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, chocolate, sugar, wine, egg, raspberry. 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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