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Dessert

Burnt Almond Charlotte

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

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 ↓

Burnt Almond Charlotte

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatine and burnt sugar

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

  2. In a saucepan, heat sugar until it becomes liquid and dark.

  3. Add chopped almonds to the sugar and stir for 2 minutes.

  4. Transfer the mixture to a platter and let it cool.

Make the custard

  1. Once cool, break the mixture into pieces and combine with milk in a pot.

  2. Cook the almond mixture for 10 minutes.

  3. Beat the egg yolks with sugar and add to the cooking mixture along with the gelatin.

  4. Stir until smooth and dissolved, then remove from heat.

Set and serve

  1. Set the mixture in a basin of ice water and beat until it thickens.

  2. Gently fold in the whipped cream and pour into molds.

  3. Refrigerate 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 main nutty flavour and a fine texture once chopped and cooked into the custard.
Gelatine
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when chilled in the mold.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help thicken it as it cooks.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that carries the almond flavour.
Whipped cream
Adds air and richness, giving the set charlotte a light, creamy texture.
Sugar
Caramelises to give a burnt, dark flavour and sweetens the custard.

The step that matters

Heating the sugar until dark. Sugar darkens quickly once it starts to caramelise, and going past dark turns it bitter. Stopping at the right colour gives the burnt flavour without a scorched taste.

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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