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Dessert

Charlotte Russe

A chilled dessert made with sweet cream, milk, gelatin, sugar, egg whites, and layered with cake or ladyfingers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 Russe

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mold

  1. Line a mold or dish with uniform-sized pieces of cake or lady fingers.

Make the filling

  1. Whip the cream until stiff.

  2. Fold in the sugar and beaten egg whites gently.

  3. Soak the gelatine in ¼ cup of heated milk.

  4. Add the remaining milk to the gelatine. Mix until just warm.

  5. Pour the mixture over the whipped cream. Stir lightly.

Set

  1. Chill until set.

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

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

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

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

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Sweet cream
Whipped to stiff foam that gives the dessert its light, airy body.
Egg whites
Beaten and folded in to add lightness and help structure the filling.
Gelatine
Dissolved in warm milk and chilled so the filling sets firm.
Cake or lady fingers
Line the mold to form the sturdy outer shell that holds the filling.
Sugar
Folded in to sweeten the filling.

The step that matters

Folding the egg whites and cream gently. Whipped cream and egg whites hold air in fragile bubbles. Vigorous stirring deflates them, leaving a dense, heavy set instead of a light one.

“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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