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Dessert

Strawberry Charlotte

A layered custard dessert with sponge cake, strawberries, and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Strawberry Charlotte

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Heat milk with egg yolks and ¾ cup sugar until thickened. Flavor to taste.

Assemble

  1. Line a glass dish with slices of sponge cake dipped in sweet cream.

  2. Add a layer of sweetened strawberries, then another layer of cake and berries.

  3. Once the custard is cold, pour it over the layers.

  4. Beat egg whites to stiff peaks, add remaining sugar, and spread over the top.

  5. Decorate with additional berries.

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. 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
Yolks thicken the milk into custard, and whites whipped to stiff peaks form the topping.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that sets as it cools.
Sponge cake
Provides the soft structure that holds the layers together in the dish.
Strawberries
Add fruity flavor and moisture between the cake layers.

The step that matters

Heat milk with egg yolks and ¾ cup sugar until thickened. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently but can scramble if the heat is too high. Stirring and moderate heat keep the custard smooth so it sets properly when cooled.

“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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