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Charlotte Russe
Thoroughly soak one ounce of gelatine in one teacupful of milk. Beat together the yolks of ten eggs and one-half pound of powdered sugar together, and place in a double-boiler with one breakfast cupful of milk; mix until the whole begins to thicken, then add the gelatine, and strain into a large tin basin. Place this in a pan of ice, and when it begins to cool add the whites of the eggs, well beaten, one tablespoonful of vanilla extract, half a tumblerful of sherry, and one pint of whipped cream. Stir well, and pour into the moulds that have been lined with sponge-cake, aud set them away to harden. With the quantities given two quart-moulds can be filled. The lining may be one piece of sponge-cake hollowed out, or strips of the same, or lady's fingers. If desired the wine may be omitted. Charlotte Russe may be filled with any kind of cream.
Oscar's Charlotte Russe is a Bavarian cream in a sponge shell, and most of it is sound period technique. The problem is the ten egg whites, which enter the pan after the custard has been taken off the heat and are never cooked at all.
- The whites are never heatedThe yolk custard is thickened over a double boiler, but the beaten whites go into a mixture that is already sitting on ice, and the finished charlotte only chills. Nothing in the recipe brings those whites to a temperature that would deal with Salmonella, and the dish then sits at refrigerator temperature for hours while it sets. If you want a charlotte russe, use a current recipe built on pasteurised whites or a cooked meringue.
- Scale makes it worseTen eggs across two quart moulds means a large number of servings from a single pooled bowl of raw white. One contaminated egg contaminates the whole batch, and the dessert is typically served to a table rather than eaten by one person immediately.
- Sherry is not a safeguardHalf a tumblerful of sherry in roughly two quarts of finished cream is nowhere near enough alcohol to do anything antimicrobial, and the recipe itself says the wine may be omitted.
- "Powdered sugar"In American books of this period powdered sugar generally means finely granulated sugar, not the cornstarch-cut confectioners' sugar sold under that name today.
- The cup measuresA teacupful is about six fluid ounces, a breakfast cupful about eight to ten, and a tumbler about eight, so half a tumblerful of sherry is roughly half a cup. These were household vessels rather than standards, and the amounts varied from kitchen to kitchen.
- An ounce of gelatineOne ounce is about four quarter-ounce envelopes of modern granulated gelatine, a stiff set intended to hold a tall unmoulded shape that would be turned out and sliced at table.
- Lady's fingersThe ladyfinger or boudoir biscuit called for here is a dry, crisp sponge finger of the type still sold today; the recipe equally allows one piece of sponge-cake hollowed out, or strips of it, as the lining.
The charlotte russe is generally traced to Antonin Car""me, who is said to have adapted the older English apple charlotte — a hot pudding baked in a bread-lined mould — into a cold one lined with sponge and filled with Bavarian cream, naming it for the Russian court he served under Alexander I. By the time Oscar Tschirky was running the Waldorf dining rooms in the 1890s it had become a familiar grand-hotel dessert in America, and it is easy to see why such a dish would suit a large kitchen: it could be moulded in advance, held on ice, unmoulded in front of the guest and cut into clean slices. Oscar's closing line — that it "may be filled with any kind of cream" — is the professional's view of the dish, a sponge case treated as a vehicle for whatever flavour the day required, and the same construction survives in the storefront charlotte russe of later New York, a paper cup of sponge and whipped cream sold as street food.