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Dessert

Charlotte

A chilled gelatin dessert made with cream, Madeira wine, egg whites, powdered sugar, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Charlotte

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the custard base

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in the sweet milk.

  2. In a bowl, beat the cream and Madeira wine together.

  3. Add the beaten egg whites to the cream mixture.

  4. Stir in the powdered sugar.

Finish and chill

  1. Finally, mix in the dissolved gelatine and vanilla extract.

  2. Chill 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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

Rich cream
Whipped into a light, rich body that gives the dessert its main texture.
Egg whites
Beaten to foam, adding airy volume to the cream mixture.
Gelatine
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when chilled.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the cream and dissolves easily into the mixture.
Madeira wine
Adds aroma and a subtle fortified-wine flavour to the cream.

The step that matters

Add the dissolved gelatine. Gelatine must be fully dissolved before it is mixed in. Lumps or gelatine added while too hot or too cold can leave the dessert unevenly set or grainy, so it should be stirred in smoothly.

“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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