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Dessert

Strawberry Charlotte

A chilled gelatin dessert with strawberries, egg whites, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Strawberry Charlotte

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Fill a mold with the strawberries.

  2. Soak the gelatine in the cold water for 30 minutes.

Make the filling

  1. Add the boiling water to the soaked gelatine, then stir in the sugar.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then fold them into the gelatine mixture until well combined.

  3. Pour the mixture over the strawberries and set in the ice to chill.

Serve

  1. To serve, turn out onto a fancy dish and serve with whipped cream.

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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the liquid mixture into a firm, sliceable structure that holds its shape when turned out.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff foam, they add lightness and airy texture to the filling.
Strawberries
Provide the main fruit flavour, plus moisture and a sweet-tart taste.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the strawberries.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be beaten to stiff peaks and folded in gently, so the foam keeps its air and the filling stays light instead of deflating.

“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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