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Dessert

Charlotte Polonaise

A layered cake with lemon and almond flavored layers, chocolate and rose creams, and a powdered sugar and almond icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and arrowroot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 179 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Charlotte Polonaise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fillings

  1. Make three thick cake layers: one gold-flavored with lemon and two silver-flavored with almond.

  2. Heat 1 ½ pints of cream or new milk in a double boiler, then add six beaten egg yolks mixed with two tablespoons of arrowroot.

  3. Divide the mixture into two parts.

  4. To one part, add two tablespoons powdered sugar, six tablespoons grated chocolate, and one pound crushed macaroons.

  5. To the second part, add one dozen bitter almonds, six dozen sweet almonds, one ounce thinly sliced citron, four tablespoons powdered sugar, and one teaspoon rose water. Color with cochineal.

Assemble and ice

  1. Assemble the cake layers: start with a white cake, spread chocolate cream, add a yellow cake with rose cream, and top with another white cake.

  2. Beat the whites of four eggs with one pound powdered sugar, then gradually add one pound sweet almonds beaten to a paste with rose water.

  3. Finish with a plain white icing over the top and sides.

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 + arrowroottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together179 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Almond + coconuttop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  3. Lemon + arrowroottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Arrowroot + coconuttop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together51 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Almond + chocolatetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,733 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks thicken the cream custard, giving the fillings body and structure.
Arrowroot
Starch that thickens the cream mixture into a smooth, sliceable filling.
Sweet almonds
Add nutty flavor and texture to the rose cream and the icing paste.
Cream or new milk
Provides richness and moisture to the custard filling.

The step that matters

Heating the cream and egg yolk mixture. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if overheated. Gentle heat in a double boiler, with arrowroot to stabilize, keeps the custard smooth and thick.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, cream, egg, arrowroot, sugar, chocolate, coconut):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Cherryfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, cream, egg, arrowroot, sugar, chocolate, coconut. 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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