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Dessert

Plain Charlotte Russe

A custard-based dessert with sponge cake layers and meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Plain Charlotte Russe

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cake

  1. Bake a white sponge cake in narrow, shallow pans.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, wet with cold water, then pour out the water and add 1 quart of milk. Boil and cool slightly.

  2. Beat the yolks of 6 eggs with 3 ounces of sugar and ¼ teaspoon of salt. Mix in the lukewarm milk.

  3. Stir and pour the mixture into a double boiler. Stir on the heat until it thickens to a cream consistency, without boiling.

  4. Strain and let cool. Add 2 teaspoons of vanilla to the cooled custard.

Assemble and bake

  1. Arrange slices of sponge cake around the sides and bottom of a glass dish. Pour the custard over the cake.

  2. For meringue, beat 4 egg whites until light. Add 4 tablespoons of sugar and flavor with lemon or vanilla.

  3. Spread the meringue over the custard. Brown slightly in the oven.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Vanilla + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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
Thicken the custard as they set on gentle heat, and add richness.
Egg whites
Whip into a light foam that forms the meringue topping.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that thickens with the yolks.
Sponge cake
Soaks up custard and wine to form the soft base layer.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and stabilises the whipped egg white meringue.

The step that matters

Thickening the custard without boiling. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, but if the custard boils the proteins curdle and turn grainy. Stirring over a double boiler keeps the heat gentle enough to produce a smooth cream.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Strawberryfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar, vanilla, wine, 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.

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