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Charlotte Prussienne
Put a little nicely-flavoured red jelly, not quite an inch deep, at the bottom of a plain mould. Let it become stiff. Line the sides of the mould compactly with finger biscuits, and half fill it with good jelly. Put it in the ice pot, and as it begins to freeze fill up with well-whipped cream. Serve it turned out of the mould. All sorts of variations may be made in the flavouring of this pudding. Time to freeze, half an hour. It had better remain in the ice until ready to serve. A medium-sized mould will suffice for six persons.
A moulded, part-frozen charlotte: jelly and sponge fingers on the outside, whipped cream frozen into the centre. The construction is straightforward once the vocabulary is translated.
- "Jelly" means gelatine dessertNot jam. A red jelly here is a clear gelatine jelly flavoured with redcurrant, raspberry or cherry, set firm enough to unmould. Make it slightly stiffer than you would eat on its own, since it has to hold the biscuits in place and survive turning out.
- Finger biscuitsSavoiardi or ladyfingers, sugared side out against the mould. Trim them flat to the height of the mould so the charlotte sits level once inverted.
- The ice potA pail packed with crushed ice and coarse salt, which brings the surroundings well below freezing. A domestic freezer does the same job more slowly: the half hour in the original becomes two to three hours, and the cream should be added when the jelly is chilled and just beginning to set at the edges rather than genuinely frozen.
- The hinge: half fill, then waitThe jelly must be set enough to grip the biscuits before the cream goes in, or the two layers will marble into each other and the sides will collapse when unmoulded. Chill the lined, half-filled mould until the jelly holds a fingerprint.
- The creamThe original says "well-whipped cream." Sweeten it; unsweetened cream tastes flat once frozen, since cold blunts sweetness. Stopping at soft rather than stiff peaks is the safer course, as over-whipped cream can turn grainy.
- Turning outDip the mould in warm water for five to ten seconds, no longer, and invert onto a chilled plate. Give it ten minutes out of the freezer before serving so the cream is spoonable rather than solid.
- YieldSix, as stated. The original specifies only "a medium-sized mould"; something in the region of 1.5 to 2 pints (roughly 850 ml to 1.1 litres) is a reasonable modern guess.
The charlotte family runs through nineteenth-century cookery in two branches: the hot baked charlotte of buttered bread and apples, and the cold moulded charlotte lined with sponge fingers and filled with bavarois or whipped cream. The cold version is generally traced to Antonin Carême, whose charlotte à la parisienne came to be known as charlotte russe; once the form existed, cooks and hotel kitchens attached national adjectives almost at will, and prussienne, napolitaine and the rest denote variations in filling and flavour rather than any documented origin. What makes this one of its period is the ice pot: before mechanical refrigeration, freezing a dessert meant a pail of crushed ice and coarse salt, which is why the recipe specifies half an hour and then advises leaving the mould buried in ice until the moment it is wanted.