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Dessert

Strawberrry Charlotte

A layered dessert of sponge cake, strawberries, custard, and whipped cream.

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 ↓

Strawberrry Charlotte

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Make a soft custard by heating the milk, egg yolks, and sugar until thickened. Flavor to taste.

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

Assemble and finish

  1. Line a glass dish with slices of sponge cake.

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

  3. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks, add a little sugar, and spread over the top.

  4. 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, giving it body and a creamy texture when heated.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard as they set with heat; whites whip into a stiff, airy topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and strawberries and helps the whipped whites hold their stiff peaks.
Sponge cake
Provides a light, absorbent structure that holds the layers together in the dish.
Strawberries
Add fruity flavor, moisture, and acidity that balance the sweet custard and cake.

The step that matters

Cooking the soft custard. Egg yolks thicken only up to a point when heated; overheating causes them to scramble and curdle, so the custard should be cooked gently and stirred until it just coats a spoon. It must also be fully cold before pouring so the layers do not turn soggy or weep.

“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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