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Dessert

Charlotte Russe

A chilled dessert made with sweet milk, cream, gelatin, vanilla, and egg yolks.

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 ↓

Charlotte Russe

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the sweet milk.

  2. Beat the egg yolks and stir them into the boiling milk.

  3. Add the granulated sugar.

  4. Add the split vanilla bean and cut into small pieces.

  5. Boil for five minutes.

  6. Pour the boiling water over the gelatine.

  7. Let it boil up once.

Finish the cream

  1. Sweeten the cream to taste and beat it to stiff peaks.

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. Sugar + creamtop 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness as they set during cooking.
Gelatine
Sets the mixture so the cream holds its shape when chilled.
Rich cream
Whipped to stiff peaks, it gives the dessert its light, airy texture.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the custard base.
Vanilla bean
Adds aroma and flavor to the custard.

The step that matters

Stir the egg yolks into the boiling milk. Egg yolks scramble if they meet very hot liquid too quickly. Adding them gradually to the hot milk while stirring keeps the custard smooth and lets it thicken evenly.

“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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