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Dessert

Strawberry Charlotte

A chilled custard dessert layered with sponge cake, strawberries, and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Strawberry Charlotte

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Heat milk with egg yolks and sugar until thickened, then flavor to taste.

Assemble the charlotte

  1. Line a glass fruit dish with slices of sponge cake dipped in sweet cream.

  2. Layer ripe strawberries sweetened to taste on top of the cake.

  3. Repeat with another layer of cake and strawberries.

  4. When the custard is cold, pour it over the layers.

Top and decorate

  1. Beat egg whites to stiff peaks, adding 1 tablespoon of sugar for each egg, then spread over the top.

  2. Decorate with the largest strawberries set aside.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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 yolks
Thicken the custard as they set with heat, giving it a rich, smooth body.
Sponge cake
Forms the soft structural layers that hold the strawberries and absorb custard.
Ripe strawberries
Provide the fresh fruit flavor and moisture between the cake layers.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they form a light, airy topping that adds structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard, strawberries and meringue topping, and helps stabilize the whites.

The step that matters

Heating the milk, egg yolks and sugar until thickened. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins set with heat. If the mixture is overheated it can curdle or turn grainy, so it should be heated gently and stirred until just thick.

“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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