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Dessert

Charlotte De Russe

A custard dessert made with sweet cream, egg yolks, sugar, milk, vanilla or bitter almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 Russe

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse the milk

  1. Boil the milk with the vanilla bean or bitter almonds.

  2. Remove from heat and strain the milk.

Make the custard

  1. When cool, stir in the sweet cream and beaten egg yolks.

  2. Put the mixture over low heat and cook gently.

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

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

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

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

  4. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

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

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

Sweet cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the custard a smooth, creamy texture.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set on gentle heat and add richness.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the cream and yolks.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour and becomes the custard.

The step that matters

Cook the custard gently over low heat. Egg yolk proteins set at moderate temperatures. Too much heat makes them curdle or scramble, leaving a grainy custard instead of a smooth, thick one.

“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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