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 ↓
A Charlotte a LA Parisienne
Ingredients
Directions
Assemble the cake
Cut the cake into half-inch slices.
Cover each slice with a different kind of preserve.
Reassemble the cake in its original form.
Finish and dry
Whisk the egg whites until they are fluffy.
Spread the whipped egg whites over the cake.
Sift more powdered sugar over the entire cake.
Place the cake in a very gentle oven to dry.
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.
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Savoy or sponge cake
- Provides a light, airy base that holds the layers together.
- Various preserves
- Add sweetness, fruit flavour and moisture between the cake layers.
- Egg whites
- Whipped into foam, they form a light meringue-like topping that dries into a crisp surface.
- Powdered sugar
- Dissolves slightly and dries into a sweet, fine crust on the surface.
The step that matters
Drying in a very gentle oven. Egg white foam sets and dries through gentle heat; too hot an oven can brown or puff the meringue topping before the inside dries, and it may weep or collapse as it cools.
“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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