Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓
Plain Charlotte Russe
Ingredients
Directions
Assemble
Place thin slices of sponge cake in the bottom of a glass dish.
Pour enough sweet wine over the cake to soak it.
Make the cream filling
Beat the egg whites until very light.
Add the powdered sugar and sweet wine to the egg whites and mix well.
Fold in the thick sweet cream until combined.
Pour the mixture over the soaked cake.
Chill and serve
Chill in a cold place until ready to serve.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Wine + creamtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,887 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together42,166 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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Wine + sugartop 31% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together9,581 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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
- Sponge cake
- Forms the base layer that soaks up the wine and holds the filling.
- Sweet wine
- Moistens and flavors the cake and sweetens the egg white mixture.
- Egg whites
- Whipped to a foam that lightens the filling and helps it set.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the whipped egg whites and dissolves easily into them.
- Thick sweet cream
- Adds richness and a smooth texture to the filling.
The step that matters
Beat the egg whites until very light. Egg whites must be whipped to a stable foam before folding in other ingredients. Under-beaten whites stay dense and deflate, leaving a heavy filling; over-beaten whites turn dry and grainy and lose their ability to blend smoothly.
“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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