Charlotte
The grateful heart will always inquire- Who was this Charlotte in whose name the apple and other fruits are endowed with a new charm, and become as it were the enchanted apples of story? I have seen English books which aver that she was Queen Charlotte, the wife of Farmer George. There is only so much truth in this that Charlotte was a German. She was at one time the most famous of her name in Europe. Napoleon read Goethe's romance of Werther no less than six times, and Charlotte was the heroine of the romance.
Werther had a love for Charlotte Such as words could never utter.
Would you know how first he met her?
She was cutting bread and butter.
Her name has been given to the combination of bread and butter with apples, which can be prepared either with or without a mould. If without a mould, the Charlotte is simply a quantity of buttered apples (which see), piled upon a dish, and hedged round with sippets of bread fried in butter. If with a mould, it is the same thing reached by a different process. The Charlotte mould is a perfectly plain cylinder about five inches deep. This is lined with thin slices of bread which have been dipped in clarified butter. The great art of the composition consists in the arrangement of the lining, cutting the bread into shape, like the pieces of a wooden pail, so as either to fit exactly into the mould, or to make the staves overlap one another. When the little bread pail is formed within the mould, it is filled with buttered apples already prepared; it is covered with a round lid of bread dipped in butter; the mould is put into the oven; and it is left there for five or ten minutes, so that the bread and butter may take a fine golden tint. Then turn the Charlotte out of the mould into a dish, and Chartreuse pour round it some diluted apricot jam. The same receipt applies to pears, apricots, and other fruits.
Charlotte Russe. - The Russian Charlotte is something of a libertine. At least she has much freedom of choice. She began by using finger biscuits for bread, and by choosing to have them with their contents cold, which at once put butter out of the question. A pail of finger biscuits was formed in a round mould, and filled in alternate layers with a cold marmalade of apples and of apricots alone. Afterwards cream was considered a desirable addition, and it was added. The Charlotte was filled with whipt cream, or with a Bavarian cheese flavoured with fruit, or with a fruit jelly and cream such as that described at page 40. Sometimes the finger biscuits of the Charlotte concealed a blancmanger or some other simple jelly. But it is always expected that the Charlotte Russe shall be well chilled upon the ice.