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Soften a half box of gelatine in a half cup of cold water then heat it over steam for a half hour. Grate two large, tart apples and one lemon or orange and beat lightly into a pint of whipped cream, then add the gelatine and when thoroughly mixed turn into a mould and set aside to cool before placing on ice. Serve with rich milk or wine sauce.
A cold gelatine cream rather than the baked, bread-lined charlotte the name usually implies. The whole thing hinges on getting the melted gelatine into the cream without it seizing into threads.
- Half a box of gelatineGranulated gelatine of this period was sold in boxes of about an ounce, so half a box is roughly 1/2 oz, or two modern 1/4-oz envelopes (about 4 1/2 teaspoons). That is a firm set for this volume; a single envelope gives a softer, spoonable result.
- Soften, then warm gentlyFive to ten minutes in the cold water is enough to bloom it, and it needs only a few minutes over hot water to clear. The half hour in the original is longer than necessary; prolonged heat, and certainly boiling, weakens the set.
- Adding the gelatineThe gelatine must be warm but not hot, and the cream must not be refrigerator-cold, or the gelatine sets on contact and leaves rubbery strings. Stir a few spoonfuls of the cream into the gelatine first, then fold that back into the rest quickly.
- One lemon or orangeGrate the rind only, not the flesh. The recipe means zest for perfume; a whole grated citrus would slacken the mixture and make it bitter with pith.
- The applesGrate them last and fold in at once, or squeeze a little lemon juice over them. Two large tart apples give roughly a cup and a half of pulp, which browns within minutes of being exposed.
- A pint of creamThe recipe says 'a pint of whipped cream', which may mean a pint measured after whipping (about a cup of heavy cream) rather than two cups measured before; the quantity of gelatine argues for the larger reading, but the text is ambiguous. Whip to soft peaks only; stiff cream will not fold cleanly around the gelatine.
- Placing on iceRefrigerate, covered, at least four hours and preferably overnight in a 1 1/2-quart mould. To unmould, dip the mould in warm water for a slow count of ten and invert onto a chilled plate.
- Yield and sauceServes six to eight. 'Rich milk' probably means cream or a thin custard; wine sauces of the period varied, some being sweetened wine custards, and could be served warm or cold.
A charlotte in the older sense is a mould lined with buttered bread or sponge fingers and filled with fruit or cream, a form generally traced to English and French kitchens of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and popularised in its chilled version as charlotte russe. By the time American cookbooks of this kind were printed, the word had loosened to mean almost any moulded cream dessert, lining or no lining, and recipes such as this one keep the name while dropping the bread entirely. Granulated gelatine, sold in small boxes from about 1890 onward, put a set cream within easier reach of a household with a cold cellar or an icebox, in place of the laborious business of boiling calves' feet. The uncooked grated apple suggests a domestic rather than a professional recipe, though this is inference: a pastry cook might have stewed and sieved the fruit.