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Dessert

Charlotte Parisienne

A gelatin dessert made with macaroons, coconut, ladyfingers, cream, eggs, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Coconut and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,294 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Charlotte Parisienne

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cream and gelatine

  1. Soak the gelatine in a little cold water for 1 to 2 hours.

  2. Chill 1 pint of cream. Whip the chilled cream and set it aside on ice.

  3. Bring the remaining pint of cream to a boil in a saucepan.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the eggs and sugar together until well mixed.

  2. Pour a little hot cream onto the egg mixture, stirring briskly. Return the mixture to the saucepan.

  3. Stir constantly for about 1 minute until it thickens, but do not let it boil.

  4. Stir in the soaked gelatine. Remove the mixture from heat.

  5. Strain the mixture into a bowl. Add the crushed macaroons, lady-fingers, coconut, and vanilla to the bowl.

  6. Let the mixture cool until just beginning to set. Place the bowl in a pan of cracked ice.

  7. Stir the mixture until smooth and thick.

  8. Gently fold in the whipped cream with as few strokes as possible.

Mold and serve

  1. Rinse a mold with cold water. Fill the mold with the mixture.

  2. Set the filled mold aside on ice until firm.

  3. Turn the firm mixture out onto a serving plate.

  4. Alternatively, hollow out a stale round sponge cake. Fill the hollowed cake with the mixture. Let the mixture harden in the cake.

  5. Serve with sweetened cream or custard sauce, very cold.

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. Coconut + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,294 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. Coconut + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,223 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

Eggs
Thicken the custard base and add richness and structure as they set.
Cream
Adds richness and, when whipped, airy lightness to the set dessert.
Gelatine
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when turned out.
Macaroons
Add texture and sweet almond flavour to the mixture.
Lady-fingers
Soak up moisture and add body to the mixture.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the richness of the cream.

The step that matters

Thicken the custard without boiling. Eggs curdle and turn grainy if they get too hot, so the mixture must be stirred constantly and kept below boiling until it coats a spoon and thickens.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Strawberryfits better
  2. Raspberryfits about as well
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Coconutthe original

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