Skip to main content
Dessert

Charlotte a LA Parisienne

A layered sponge cake dessert with calf's-foot jelly, macaroons, apricot jelly, ratafia cakes, lemon cream, and icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Charlotte a LA Parisienne

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mold

  1. Butter a mold.

  2. Line the mold with slices of sponge cake mixed with egg whites and sugar.

Build the layers

  1. Cover the bottom with ½ inch of calf's-foot jelly and let it set.

  2. Add a layer of macaroons, followed by apricot jelly and ratafia cakes.

  3. Spread a layer of rich lemon cream, then fill with another layer of sponge cake.

  4. Let it stand in a cool place or ice for several hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Turn out the mold and brush with icing.

  2. Use a salamander to harden the icing without browning it.

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. Apricot + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,098 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + apricottop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,630 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Sponge cake
Forms the structure of the charlotte's outer lining and inner layer.
Egg whites
Bind the sponge cake slices together and help hold their shape.
Calf's-foot jelly
Sets firm to form a stable base layer that holds the other layers.
Lemon cream
Adds a rich, soft, tangy filling that moistens the layers.
Icing
Forms a smooth sweet glaze on the outside that hardens when warmed.

The step that matters

Use a salamander to harden the icing without browning it. Excess heat from the salamander can melt or brown the sugar icing. Brief, controlled heat sets the surface into a glossy shell while keeping it pale.

Swap the apricot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, lemon, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raspberryfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Apricotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, lemon, cream. 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes