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Iced Charlotte
Take six small charlotte-moulds, and line them neatly with a dozen lady's-finger biscuits cut crosswise into halves. Have ready one and one-half pint of vanilla ice-cream, turn this into the interiors of the moulds, and then turn them onto a dessert-dish with a folded napkin over. Divide the remainder of the ice-cream evenly among the six charlottes, placing one macaroon on top of each, then send immediately to the table.
A five-minute assembly job that lives or dies on temperature and on having the moulds lined tightly. The written sequence is confusingly worded: fill the lined moulds, unmould them onto the napkin-lined dish, then crown each with the reserved cream and a macaroon.
- Mould sizeOne and a half pints of ice cream divided among six moulds comes to about half a cup each in total, and since a portion is reserved for the tops each mould itself takes somewhat less. The recipe specifies only that the moulds are "small"; no capacity is given.
- Lady's-finger biscuitsFinger-shaped sponge biscuits, drier and firmer than a slice of sponge cake, of the type now sold as savoiardi. "Cut crosswise into halves" most likely means cut across the width to give two short lengths, presumably stood round the inside wall of the mould.
- Line the moulds first, and chill themThe hinge of the dish. Set the lined moulds in the freezer for fifteen minutes before filling; a warm mould softens the ice cream at the edges and the whole thing slumps when turned out.
- Filling and unmouldingPack the ice cream in firmly with the back of a spoon so no air pockets show on the sides, then freeze until hard. A cloth wrung out in hot water, wrapped round the mould for a few seconds, releases it cleanly.
- The folded napkinA folded napkin on the dish was standard service presentation and keeps the moulded charlottes from sliding; a chilled plate serves as well now.
- MacaroonThe period macaroon is the chewy almond-paste kind, not the French macaron shell. Add it at the last moment, since it softens on contact with the cream.
- YieldSix individual desserts. The original is right that they must go to the table immediately; assembled charlottes hold perhaps ten minutes before the biscuits begin to go damp.
A charlotte in the older sense is a mould lined with bread, sponge or biscuit and filled, a form generally traced to English apple charlottes of the late eighteenth century and refined in French kitchens as the charlotte russe, lined with ladyfingers and filled with bavarian cream. The iced version simply swaps the cream for ice cream, which accounts for the recipe's brevity and its abrupt closing instruction to send it in at once.