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Orange Charlotte
1/3 box gelatine 1/3 cup cold water 1/3 cup boiling water 1 cup sugar 1 cup orange juice and pulp 3 tablespoons lemon juice 3 egg whites 2 cups cream, whipped Soak gelatine in cold water. Dissolve in boiling water. Strain and add sugar, lemon juice, orange juice and pulp. Chill, and when jelly begins to set, add the egg whites beaten very stiff. Fold in the cream. Line a mold with sections of oranges, lady fingers or sponge cake; pour the charlotte into the mold and chill on ice. To remove from mold, loosen around the edges with a palette knife. Place a dish over the mold and turn quickly upside down. Serves 6.
A gelatine cream of the sort that carried dessert courses in the 1920s and 30s, set cold and turned out of a decorative mold. One element of it does not meet current food-safety practice.
- Raw egg whitesThe three whites are beaten stiff and folded into a jelly that is only chilled, never heated. Shell eggs can carry Salmonella, and nothing in this method brings the whites to a temperature that would kill it. A dessert of this kind should be made from a current recipe built around pasteurized egg product or a cooked meringue.
- A box of gelatineGranulated gelatine was sold in a carton holding four folded papers or envelopes, about an ounce in all. One third of a box is therefore roughly 1 1/3 envelopes; period sources often reckoned an envelope as a tablespoon, though a modern envelope is about 2 1/4 teaspoons, so anywhere from about 1 to 1 1/3 tablespoons. Treat it as approximate, since box sizes were not uniform between brands.
- Cream measured unwhippedThe two cups are heavy cream measured before beating, which will roughly double in volume. Whip only to soft peaks so it folds into the setting jelly without streaking.
- Chill on iceThis means a bowl or tub of ice and cold water surrounding the mold, the standard method before domestic refrigeration. A refrigerator does the same work; the point is that the gelatine sets from the outside in and wants several hours undisturbed.
- Timing the foldThe hinge of the method is adding the whites and cream when the jelly "begins to set" — thick as raw egg white. Too warm and everything liquefies and separates into layers; too cold and the jelly breaks into lumps you cannot fold smooth.
- Lining the moldLady fingers or sponge fingers stand upright against the sides, or orange sections are laid in a pattern on the bottom, which becomes the top when unmolded. Sections must be free of membrane and well drained or they weep into the set.
- YieldSix servings. The recipe gives no mold size.