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Caramel Charlotte Russe
¼ box gelatine or 1 tablespoon granulated gelatine 1/4 cup cold water ½ cup scalded cream 1/3 cup sugar, caramelized 1/4 cup powdered sugar 1½ teaspoons vanilla Whip from 3½ cups cream 6 lady fingers Make same as Charlotte Russe, adding caramelized sugar to scalded cream before putting into gelatine mixture.
A variation entry: it assumes you have Fannie Farmer's plain Charlotte Russe in front of you and only tells you what changes. The whole difference is a third of a cup of sugar burned to caramel and stirred into the hot cream.
- The gelatineA box of gelatine of the period held about four tablespoons, so a quarter box is the one tablespoon given as the alternative — a little more than one modern envelope, which holds about 2¼ teaspoons or 7 g. Soften it in the quarter cup of cold water for five minutes before the hot cream goes in.
- "Whip from 3½ cups cream"Nineteenth-century cream was thinner and was whipped in a bowl set on ice, the stiff froth skimmed off the top as it formed and the unwhipped remainder re-beaten. With modern heavy cream you need nothing like that volume: 1½ to 2 cups, whipped to soft peaks, should give roughly the same finished bulk.
- Caramelizing the sugarMelt the third of a cup of sugar dry in a heavy pan over medium heat until it is the colour of dark honey, then pour in the scalded cream off the heat, standing back — it will steam and seize briefly before smoothing out. Stir the caramel cream into the softened gelatine.
- Temperature is the hingeCool the caramel-gelatine mixture until it is cold and just beginning to thicken to the consistency of raw egg white before folding in the whipped cream. Fold it in warm and the cream deflates and separates into layers; let it set too far and it goes lumpy and will not fold at all. Set the bowl in ice water and stir.
- Lady fingers and mouldLine the sides of a quart charlotte mould or a straight-sided bowl with the split lady fingers, cut ends down, before filling. Six is a bare minimum for a small mould; buy a dozen and trim to fit.
- Setting timeChill at least four hours, preferably overnight. To unmould, dip the outside briefly in warm water and invert onto a cold plate.
- YieldAbout a quart, serving six.
Charlotte russe — a cold cream set with gelatine inside a wall of sponge fingers — is generally credited to Marie-Antoine Carême, who is said to have devised it in the early nineteenth century and named it for a Russian patron. By 1896 it had become a fixture of American cookbooks and of the cold-dessert repertoire that depended on ice: The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book gives the plain version and then a short string of variations, of which this is one, each altering a single element. Caramelizing sugar to flavour cream is a technique that appears throughout the book, in custards, sauces and ice creams. Earlier cooks, lacking reliable granulated gelatine, boiled calf's foot or isinglass for the same setting effect.