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Dessert

Charlotte Rikse

A chilled custard dessert made with milk, sugar, egg yolks, isinglass, cream, and layered with ladyfingers or sponge cake.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Charlotte Rikse

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the vanilla bean in the milk, then strain and let it cool.

  2. Add the loaf sugar to the cooled milk.

  3. Beat the egg yolks until light and stir them into the mixture.

  4. Heat the mixture over low heat for 5 minutes until it thickens into a custard, being careful not to boil.

Add the isinglass and cream

  1. Dissolve the isinglass in 1 pint of water, ensuring half the water evaporates.

  2. Once the custard is cold, mix in the dissolved isinglass thoroughly.

  3. Whip the cream until frothy, then gently fold it into the custard.

Mould and set

  1. Line the bottom of a mold with white paper and the sides with lady-fingers or sponge cake.

  2. Pour the custard into the mold, cover with white paper, and set it on ice mixed with coarse salt.

  3. Let it set for at least 3 to 4 hours.

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. Sugar + eggtop 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 and add richness as they set when gently heated.
Isinglass
Gelatin-like setting agent that firms the custard so it holds its shape when chilled.
Rich cream
Whipped and folded in to add lightness and fat for a creamy, airy texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, carrying the sugar and yolks.

The step that matters

Heating the custard gently. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, but boiling can curdle them and leave a grainy custard. Keep the heat low and stop as soon as it coats a spoon.

“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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