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Dessert

Strawberry Charlotte Russe

A chilled dessert of layered ladyfingers, strawberries, and whipped cream flavored with sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Strawberry Charlotte Russe

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Whip the cream until soft peaks form, then sweeten and flavor with sherry wine.

  2. Line a large glass bowl with lady fingers.

  3. Cover the lady fingers with strawberries and a sprinkle of powdered sugar.

  4. Add half of the whipped cream on top.

  5. Layer more lady fingers, followed by more strawberries and the remaining whipped cream.

  6. Set the bowl on ice until ready to serve.

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 + sherrytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

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

  4. Sherry + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Wine + sugartop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together9,581 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cream
Whipped into soft peaks to form the light, airy filling that gives the charlotte its texture.
Lady fingers
Sponge structure that lines the bowl and holds the layers together.
Strawberries
Add fruit flavor and moisture between the layers.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the strawberries and dissolves easily into their juices.

The step that matters

Whip the cream to soft peaks. Cream that is over-whipped turns grainy and can separate, while under-whipped cream stays runny and will not hold its shape between the layers.

“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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