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Cherry Charlotte
Line a mold with pieces of dry sponge cake, previously dipping it in melted butter. Stew 1 pound of cherries till tender with 1/2 pound of sugar. Fill the inside of mold with alternate layers of cake and cherries, from which the juice has been drained. Pour the remaining juice and 1 tablespoonful of melted butter over the whole, and bake in a moderate oven for half an hour.
Turn out on a pretty dish, and serve hot, with either cherry sauce or whipped cream. This same recipe can be made in individual molds, and when turned out, garnished with transparent cherries.
A charlotte in the older English sense: stale cake soaked in fat and fruit, baked in a mold and turned out. The whole thing stands or falls on whether the cake lining holds together when you invert it.
- Drain the fruit properlyThe instruction to drain the cherries and add the juice only at the end is the hinge. If the fruit goes in wet, the lining turns to sludge and the charlotte collapses on the plate rather than unmolding.
- Moderate oven350F (175C). Half an hour is enough to set the structure and caramelize the butter at the edges; the filling is already cooked.
- The moldA plain 1 to 1.5 quart charlotte mold, a straight-sided souffle dish or a small metal bowl all work. Butter it well and, if you want insurance, line the base with a disc of parchment before laying in the cake.
- Sponge cakeDry cake is specified for a reason: fresh sponge is too tender to absorb butter and juice without disintegrating. Day-old or two-day-old plain sponge, ladyfingers or a stale pound cake all serve. Cut into fingers or wedges so the pieces overlap without gaps.
- WeightsOne pound of cherries is roughly 450g, about 2 1/2 to 3 cups once pitted. Half a pound of sugar is about 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons. That is a sweet stew by modern taste, and sour cherries take it far better than sweet ones; with dark sweet cherries, cut the sugar by a third and add a squeeze of lemon.
- StewingCherries need only 8 to 10 minutes over low heat once the sugar has drawn out their liquid. Longer and the fruit falls to threads, and there is nothing left to layer.
- Transparent cherriesProbably candied or glace cherries, sold clear and glossy, though the term is not firmly documented. Glace cherries from the baking aisle are the nearest modern equivalent.
- Turning outLet it stand 5 minutes out of the oven, run a knife around the rim, then invert onto a warmed dish. Any longer and the butter congeals and it sticks.
- YieldA 1-quart mold serves 5 or 6; the individual version makes about six 6-ounce ramekins, which need only 18 to 20 minutes.
The charlotte belongs to a family of English puddings built from bread or cake lining a mold, of which the apple charlotte is the oldest and best known; the name is traditionally linked to Queen Charlotte, consort of George III, though the connection is asserted more often than it is documented. The genre split in the nineteenth century into these hot baked charlottes and the cold charlotte russe, a ladyfinger case filled with bavarian cream that is generally credited to Careme. What puts this version in a low-cost collection is the frugality at its core: it is a way of turning cake that has gone dry into a company dessert, with fruit in season and no eggs, cream or flour required beyond what the stale sponge already contains. The optional whipped cream and candied cherries are the only luxuries, and both are left to the cook's purse.