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Dessert

337 Charlottes — Continued.

A chilled cream dessert with gelatin, vanilla, wine, and sponge cake.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

337 Charlottes — Continued.

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream

  1. Flavor 1 pint of cream with 1 teaspoon of vanilla and 1 tablespoon of wine, then whip to stiff peaks.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff, add ½ cup of caster sugar, and gently mix with the whipped cream.

  3. Fill fancy paper cases with the cream, decorate with thin triangles of sponge cake and a cube of wine jelly.

Make the gelatine and mould

  1. Soak 1 ounce of gelatine in ½ cup of cold water until softened.

  2. Chill 1 pint of cream, line a 3-pint mould with lady's fingers or sponge cake, crust side out.

  3. Whip the cream and place it in a metal pan set in ice.

  4. Sift 2 tablespoons of caster sugar over the whipped cream, add 1 teaspoon of vanilla and 1 tablespoon of wine.

  5. Dissolve the gelatine in ½ cup of boiling water, strain it over the whipped cream, and stir gently.

  6. If lumpy, warm the pan in water until the gelatine melts, then stir until well mixed.

  7. When nearly stiff, pour into the mould and keep on ice until ready to serve.

  8. Turn out and garnish with jelly.

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 + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Vanilla + winetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together887 recipes

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

  5. Cream + winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Vanilla and sugar 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

Cream
Whipped to stiff peaks, it forms the light, airy body of the dessert.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they add lightness and airy structure to the cream.
Gelatine
Sets the whipped cream so it holds its shape when turned out.
Sponge cake (in the method)
Lines the mould and decorates, giving a soft, absorbent edge.
Caster sugar
Sweetens the cream and dissolves easily into it.

The step that matters

Stir the gelatine into the whipped cream when it is nearly stiff. Gelatine sets as it cools, so if it is added too cold it forms lumps, and if the cream is over-whipped or too warm the mixture can separate or fail to hold its shape. Warming the pan gently and stirring until smooth keeps the set even.

“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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