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Dessert

French Charlotte

A gelatin dessert made with milk, sugar, egg, and whipped cream, served chilled with nuts and a cherry.

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 ↓

French Charlotte

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Dissolve gelatine in hot water.

  2. Heat milk and sugar in a saucepan.

  3. Beat the egg and add it to the milk mixture.

  4. Stir in the dissolved gelatine.

  5. Cool the mixture until it thickens.

Finish and serve

  1. Fold in the whipped cream.

  2. Serve in glasses topped with chopped nuts and a cherry.

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 + cherrytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together851 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Nuts + cherrytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together57 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Milk + nutstop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together982 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine (in the method)
Sets the liquid mixture so it thickens and holds its shape when chilled.
Egg
Adds richness and helps thicken the milk mixture as it cooks.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the dessert.
Whipped cream
Adds lightness and a soft, airy texture through folding.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture until it thickens. Gelatine sets only as the mixture cools, so it must be partly set before folding in the whipped cream. If it is too cold or too firm, it will not blend smoothly and may leave lumps.

Swap the cherry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Cherrythe original

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