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Charlotte Russe (Make a custard of pint milk)
Make a custard of 1/2 pint milk and 3 eggs, adding a pinch of salt. When cold, dissolve nearly half a package jello (or like product) in a little boiling water and stir in the custard. Sweeten, flavour and whip 1 pint cream and stir in custard.
Pineapple or lemon flavouring.
A packaged-gelatin shortcut version of a classic moulded cream, written for cooks who already knew what a charlotte russe looked like. The instructions assume more than they say, so a few things need filling in.
- The measuresHalf a pint of milk is 1 cup; a pint of cream is 2 cups. Whipped, that cream roughly doubles to about 4 cups, which is then folded into the custard base.
- "Half a package jello"Modern flavoured gelatin boxes are 3 oz (85 g), so half a package is about 1 1/2 oz (40 g) of powder, roughly 3 tablespoons, dissolved in a few tablespoons of boiling water. The powder brings its own sugar, flavour and colour with it.
- The custardCook the milk and eggs as a stirred custard over low heat or a water bath to about 170-175F, until it coats a spoon, then strain and cool. Three whole eggs to one cup of milk sets very firmly if it goes near a boil.
- Temperature is the hingeDissolved gelatin poured into cold custard seizes into threads. Have the custard cool but not chilled, and add the gelatin liquid in a thin stream while whisking constantly.
- Fold, do not stirThe recipe says stir the whipped cream in; fold it instead, with a spatula, or the volume that makes this dish worth eating collapses. Whip the cream only to soft peaks so it stays foldable.
- Pineapple flavouringUse extract or canned pineapple juice. Fresh or frozen raw pineapple contains bromelain, which digests gelatin and leaves the mixture soupy.
- Moulding and settingCharlotte russe is traditionally set in a mould lined with ladyfingers or strips of sponge cake. Chill at least 4 hours, and overnight if the mould is deep. It will not set at room temperature.
- YieldAbout 5 to 6 cups of finished cream, enough for 8 servings, or one 1 1/2-quart mould.
The charlotte russe is generally credited to Antonin Carême in the early nineteenth century, a cold cousin of the baked apple charlotte, and the name is usually traced to his service to Tsar Alexander I. In its grand form it is a mould lined with ladyfingers and filled with bavarian cream set with leaf or sheet gelatin, a laborious business that required soaking and softening the gelatin before anything else could begin. What this version records is the moment that labour disappeared: sweetened, flavoured, coloured gelatin dessert powder in a box did the setting, sweetening and flavouring in one step, and a dish that had been a professional showpiece became something a household cook could assemble between other jobs. The Five Roses Cook Book, issued by a Canadian flour milling company and largely built from recipes sent in by women who used its flour, is exactly the kind of collection where that shift shows up.