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Dessert

Charlotte Polanaise

A layered sponge cake with chocolate, rose, and strawberry flavored mousse, topped with chocolate icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and strawberry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,385 recipes. Both carry p-vinylguaiacol, which smells spicy, fruity. The science ↓

Charlotte Polanaise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cake

  1. Prepare a sponge cake the day before.

  2. Bake the sponge cake in a square tin.

  3. Cut off the top crust (1 inch thick) the next day.

  4. Remove the inside of the cake, keeping the crust.

Make the mixtures

  1. Mix the egg yolks, gelatin, and whipped cream for the yellow Charlotte Russe.

  2. Beat the egg whites, add powdered sugar, gelatin, and whipped cream for the white Charlotte Russe.

  3. Divide the yellow mixture in two.

  4. Mix one half of the yellow mixture with melted chocolate and flavor with vanilla.

  5. Divide the white mixture in two.

  6. Flavor one half of the white mixture with rose.

  7. Flavor the other half of the white mixture with strawberry.

Assemble and serve

  1. Line the cake with the chocolate mixture.

  2. Spread the rose-flavored white mixture on top of the chocolate layer.

  3. Layer the strawberry-flavored white mixture on top of the rose layer.

  4. Add the chocolate (yellow) layer.

  5. Add the strawberry (pink) layer.

  6. Cover with the top crust of the cake.

  7. Cover the entire cake with chocolate icing.

  8. Let the cake stand in a cool place for 2 hours before serving.

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. Vanilla + strawberrytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,385 recipes

    Shared aroma: p-vinylguaiacol (spicy, fruity).

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Gelatin + creamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Gelatin + sugartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Egg yolks
Enrich the custard-like mixture and add richness and colour to the yellow layer.
Egg whites
Whipped to foam, they lighten the white layer and give it airy structure.
Gelatin
Sets the creamy mixtures so the layers hold their shape when sliced.
Heavy cream
Whipped, it adds moisture and a light, creamy texture to both layers.
Chocolate
Melted into the yellow mixture to flavour that layer with chocolate.
Sponge cake
Forms the hollow crust shell that holds the filling.

The step that matters

Whipping the egg whites and cream. Egg whites and cream must be whipped to stiff foam before folding in the gelatin. Under-whipped foam gives a dense, weeping filling, and over-whipping makes it grainy and prone to collapse.

Swap the strawberry

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, gelatin, cream, sugar, chocolate, vanilla, rose):

  1. Raspberryfits about as well
  2. Strawberrythe original
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, gelatin, cream, sugar, chocolate, vanilla, rose. 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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