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Dessert

Charlotte Russe.— No. 2

A gelatin dessert made with cream, sherry, vanilla, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and vanilla work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 506 recipes. Both carry piperonal, which smells bitter, coconut. The science ↓

Charlotte Russe.— No. 2

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gelatine base

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in ⅓ cup of milk, then scald, cool, and strain.

Combine and mould

  1. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth and add the gelatine.

  2. Stir in the sugar, sherry, and vanilla.

  3. Whip the cream and add it slowly to the mixture.

  4. Once cold, pour into molds lined with sponge cake.

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. Sherry + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together506 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

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

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

Cream
Whipped cream adds lightness and a rich, smooth texture to the filling.
Egg whites
Whipped to a stiff froth, they trap air and give the filling its airy structure.
Gelatine
Sets the mixture as it cools, holding the filling firm enough to unmould.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and adds body to the mixture.

The step that matters

Adding the whipped cream slowly. Folding the cream in gradually keeps the air already whipped into it from collapsing, so the filling stays light instead of dense.

“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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