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Charlotte Russe (One pint milk made into)
One pint milk made into a custard with the yolks of six eggs, sweetened with half a pound sugar, and flavored with vanilla, Strain into the custard, one ounce isinglass, dissolved in two cupfuls milk. When this mixture is cold and begins to stiffen, mix with it gradually, one pint rich cream, previously whipped to a froth. Then put strips of sponge cake around the mould and put the Charlotte Russe in. Turn it out when ready to serve.--Mrs. W. C. R. Charlotte Russe.
Soak three-quarters of a package of gelatine in three teacups fresh milk. Make a custard of one and a half pint fresh milk, three-quarters of a pound of sugar, and the yolks of eight eggs. When it has boiled, add the gelatine, and flavor with vanilla. When it begins to congeal, stir in a quart rich cream, whipped to a froth.--Mrs. M.
Charlotte Russe.
Have a tin or earthernware mould six inches high, and the same in diameter (or oblong, if you like). Slice sponge cake or lady-fingers and line the mould with them. Then beat three pints rich cream to a froth, and put the froth on a sieve to drain the milk from it. Take one pint calf's-foot jelly (or one and a half ounces gelatine), half a pint rich milk, and the yolks of six eggs. Place over a slow fire, and beat till they nearly boil. Then take them off the fire and beat till cool. Put in the frothed cream, sweeten to your taste, flavor with vanilla, and stir all well together. Fill the mould and place it on ice to cool.--Mrs. W. H. L.
Strawberry Charlotte Russe.
Six eggs, one ounce isinglass, one quart milk. Sweeten to the taste and flavor with vanilla. Pour into moulds. Then put it on sponge cake, covered with strawberry jam, and pour around the dish whipped cream, sweetened and flavored with wine.--Mrs. McG.
Four contributors' versions of the same dish: a vanilla Bavarian cream set in a mould lined with sponge cake. The variations are mostly in the setting agent and the ratio of cream to custard, and none of them give times or temperatures.
- The hinge: when to fold in the creamMrs. W. C. R. and Mrs. M. both add the whipped cream when the custard "begins to stiffen" or "congeal" (Mrs. W. H. L. simply beats hers till cool). This is not padding — fold too early and the cream sinks into a dense layer, too late and the gelatine sets in lumps you cannot beat out. Chill the custard until it mounds thickly on a spoon but still flows, then fold quickly and fill the mould at once.
- Isinglass and "a package of gelatine"Isinglass is refined fish swim-bladder collagen (traditionally sturgeon), sold in sheets and shreds and highly variable in strength; the size of a 19th-century "package" or "box" of gelatine was not standardised, and commonly ran somewhere between half an ounce and an ounce. Because setting power differed from brand to brand, these quantities cannot be converted exactly. Modern powdered gelatine is much stronger: about one ¼-oz envelope per 2 cups of total liquid gives a soft moulded cream that still holds its shape.
- Calf's-foot jellyMrs. W. H. L.'s pint of calf's-foot jelly is unsweetened homemade gelatine stock, made by long-boiling split calves' feet and clarifying the liquid. It contributed body and a little flavour; her own parenthesis (1½ oz gelatine) shows cooks were already substituting.
- Custard temperature"Beat till they nearly boil" and "when it has boiled" both mean the same practical thing: take the custard to 170–180F, where it thickens, and no further. Yolk custard at a full boil curdles. A double boiler and a thermometer make this reliable; strain afterwards regardless.
- Blooming the gelatineSoak the gelatine in the cold milk until swollen, 5–10 minutes, then stir it into the hot strained custard until fully dissolved. Undissolved granules show up as gritty threads in the finished cream.
- SugarHalf a pound of sugar is about 1⅛ cups; three-quarters of a pound close to 1¾ cups. Against a pint or so of milk this is very sweet by current taste, and the sponge lining and jam add more. Reducing by a third is reasonable.
- The mould and unmouldingThe six-inch mould Mrs. W. H. L. specifies — six inches high and the same across — holds close to three quarts. Line the sides with ladyfingers or sponge fingers cut to height, packed tightly so the cream does not bleed through. Chill at least 4–6 hours, then dip the mould in warm water for a few seconds and invert onto a cold plate.
- Whipped cream, drainedDraining the froth on a sieve is not fussiness — it removes the thin liquid that would otherwise weep out of the set cream and loosen the cake lining. It is worth doing with modern cream too.
- YieldA mould of this size serves a dozen or more. Mrs. McG.'s last version is moulded but not lined: a set custard turned out onto jam-covered sponge cake with sweetened wine cream poured round it, closer to a trifle.
Charlotte russe is generally traced to Antonin Carême, the French pastry cook, and the name is usually said to honour Tsar Alexander I of Russia, whom Carême served — a claim repeated everywhere and documented nowhere very firmly. The construction is consistent regardless of origin: a Bavarian cream, meaning an egg custard set with gelatine and lightened with whipped cream, poured into a case of sponge fingers and turned out cold. That it appears here four times over, each version signed with a different set of initials, suggests the standing the dish may have had in Virginia households after the Civil War. It was expensive in eggs and cream, needed ice to set, and could be made a day ahead — qualities that would have suited it to weddings and party suppers. Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879), compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by some 250 women, prints such variants side by side rather than choosing between them, which is why the same recipe can be read four ways on one page.