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Dessert

Burnt Almond Charlotte

A chilled almond dessert made with blanched almonds, sugar, milk, egg yolks, gelatin, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Burnt Almond Charlotte

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatin and almonds

  1. Soak the gelatin in cold water for 2 hours.

  2. Heat sugar in a saucepan until it becomes liquid and dark.

  3. Add chopped almonds to the sugar.

  4. Stir the mixture for 2 minutes.

  5. Turn the mixture onto a platter.

  6. Let the mixture cool.

  7. Break the cooled mixture into pieces.

Make the custard

  1. Combine the pieces with milk in a pot.

  2. Cook the almond mixture for 10 minutes.

  3. Beat the egg yolks with sugar.

  4. Add the beaten egg yolks, sugar, and gelatin to the cooking mixture.

  5. Stir the mixture until smooth and dissolved.

  6. Remove the pot from heat.

  7. Set the pot in a basin of ice water.

  8. Beat the mixture until it thickens.

Set and serve

  1. Fold in the whipped cream.

  2. Pour the mixture into molds.

  3. Chill the molds in ice until firm.

  4. Optionally, place sponge cake around the mold.

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. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Almond + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  5. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet almonds
Provide the nutty flavor and body of the charlotte filling.
Gelatine
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when unmolded.
Egg yolks
Thicken the milk custard and add richness.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that carries the almonds.
Whipped cream
Adds lightness and a creamy, airy texture to the set mixture.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and caramelizes to give the burnt flavor.

The step that matters

Heat sugar until dark. Sugar caramelizes into a deep brown, bitter-sweet flavor when heated; if it goes too far it turns acrid and burnt, so it needs close watching.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pecansfits about as well
  3. Pistachiofits less well
  4. Chestnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, egg, cream. 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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