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Dessert

Spanish Charlotte

A layered custard dessert made with stale cake crumbs, jelly or fruit, chocolate custard, eggs, milk, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,404 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Spanish Charlotte

Ingredients

Directions

Assemble the layers

  1. Place crumbs of stale cake or rolled crackers in the bottom of a pudding dish.

  2. Layer jelly or fruit over the crumbs.

  3. Continue layering crumbs and jelly or fruit until the dish is nearly full, forming a tip with the crumbs.

Make the custard

  1. To make the custard, dissolve ¼ pound of chocolate in ⅓ cup of boiling water.

  2. Beat 8 eggs (reserve 2 whites) and stir into 1 quart of rich milk alternately with the chocolate and 3 tablespoons of sugar.

  3. Pour a custard made from the chocolate mixture over the layers.

  4. Pour the custard mixture over the layered dish and bake.

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. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  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

Eggs
Set the custard into a sliceable structure as they cook.
Rich milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, adding richness and moisture.
Chocolate
Flavors the custard and colors it dark brown.
Crumbs of stale cake or rolled crackers
Absorb the custard and jelly, giving the dish body and a soft, layered texture.
Jelly or fruit
Adds moisture, sweetness and fruity flavor between the crumb layers.

The step that matters

Pour the custard over the layered dish and bake. Egg proteins set the custard as it heats, so the dish must be baked until the custard is firm rather than liquid. Pouring the custard over the crumbs lets them soak it up before baking.

“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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