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Dessert

Another Charlotte Russe

A chilled gelatin dessert made with whipped cream, milk, and vanilla, layered over lady‑fingers or sponge cake.

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 ↓

Another Charlotte Russe

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatine and cream

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold milk for 2 hours.

  2. Whip the cream until stiff and set it on ice.

Make the custard base

  1. Boil the milk and pour it gradually over the dissolved gelatine, then strain.

  2. When nearly cold, fold in the whipped cream a spoonful at a time.

  3. Sweeten with powdered sugar and flavor with vanilla.

Set and serve

  1. Line a dish with lady-fingers or sponge cake.

  2. Pour the cream mixture into the dish and set in a cool place to harden.

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. Milk + creamtop 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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid cream into a firm, sliceable structure as it cools.
Rich cream
Whipped to a foam that gives the dessert its light, airy, creamy texture.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that carries the gelatine and adds richness and body.
Lady-fingers or sponge cake
Forms the lining that gives the dessert structure and soaks up moisture at the edges.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped cream when nearly cold. If the gelatine mixture is still warm, it melts the whipped cream and deflates its air. If it is too cold, it sets in lumps before the cream is evenly mixed in.

“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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