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Dessert

Orange Charlotte

A gelatin dessert made with orange juice pulp, lemon juice, egg white, sugar, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Orange Charlotte

Ingredients

Directions

Make the orange mixture

  1. Dissolve gelatine in boiling water and add lemon juice and orange juice pulp.

  2. Set aside to cool, stirring occasionally until partially set.

  3. Beat the mixture until foamy, then fold in the beaten egg white.

Assemble and set

  1. Gently fold in the whipped cream until well combined.

  2. Line a mold with orange sections and pour the mixture in.

  3. Chill until fully set.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Gelatine
Sets the mixture into a soft, sliceable structure as it chills.
Egg white
Beaten in to add airy lightness and foam to the mixture.
Whipped cream
Folded in to add richness and a light, creamy texture.
Orange juice pulp
Supplies the main orange flavour and some body to the mixture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the citrus juices.

The step that matters

Let the mixture partially set before folding in the egg white and cream. If gelatine is too liquid, the egg white and cream will deflate and the mousse-like texture will be lost. If it sets too firmly, it will not blend smoothly and will form lumps.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raspberryfits about as well
  3. Orangethe original
  4. Raisinfits less well

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