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Charlotte-Russe (One ounce gelatine dissolved)
One ounce gelatine dissolved in two gills of boiling milk, whites of four eggs beaten to a stiff froth, one and a half cups white powdered sugar, one pint thick cream whipped to a froth, and rose-water or vanilla for flavoring; line a large mold with thick slices of spongecake, mix the gelatine, sugar, cream and flavoring together, add lightly the frothed whites of the eggs, pour into mold, set away on ice till required for use. This is an easy and excellent mode of making this most delicate dessert. - Mrs. V. G. Hush, Minneapolis, Minn.
A chilled, unbaked gelatine cream. The four egg whites go in raw and the mixture is never heated after the milk stage, so this one is worth reading rather than making; the notes below explain the measurements and the problem.
- Why it fails todayThe whites of four eggs are beaten and folded into a cold mixture that is then simply set on ice. Nothing in the recipe brings the egg to a temperature that would kill Salmonella, and the dessert is held for hours at refrigerator temperature or above before serving. Use a current charlotte russe or bavarian cream recipe that either cooks the base to a custard or calls for pasteurized whites.
- Two gillsA gill is half a cup, so two gills is one cup of boiling milk — a small amount of liquid for a full ounce of gelatine.
- An ounce of gelatineRoughly four quarter-ounce envelopes of modern powdered gelatine, which would set this stiff enough to slice. Nineteenth-century gelatine varied considerably in strength, so a period quantity does not translate directly to a modern one.
- White powdered sugarIn period usage this generally meant finely ground sugar rather than the cornstarch-cut confectioners' sugar sold today; superfine (caster) sugar is the closer equivalent.
- "Set away on ice"A chilling instruction, not a freezing one. Ice-cooled storage held food less cold and less steadily than a modern refrigerator, which is part of why the raw-egg version reads as unwise now.
- Thick creamA pint of cream with a high enough fat content to whip, which in this period typically meant cream skimmed from the top of standing milk. Any modern heavy or whipping cream does the job.
- YieldA pint of whipped cream plus four frothed whites and a cup of gelatine mixture fills a large mold; served in thin slices, as these gelatine creams were, it would stretch to a good many small portions.
History: Charlotte russe is traditionally associated with the pastry chef Antonin Careme, who is often credited with the name, though the attribution is not firmly documented; unlike the older baked apple charlotte, the russe is a cold cream set inside a wall of cake or ladyfingers and turned out of its mold. By the time this collection appeared in Minneapolis in 1877, packaged gelatine was available to household cooks, and versions like this one, credited to a named contributor, spread through church and community cookbooks as a showpiece dessert.