No. 3142

Charlotte Bengalian

Charlotte Bengalienne

Cook a flat of Genoese paste (No. 3239), having it about three-eighths of an inch thick; invert it on a sheet of paper, pare off the upper crust and divide it into two bands, each to be two and three-quarters inches wide; cut one of these bands into short uprights slightly inclined toward the right, having them half an inch wide, and the other band the same width, only inclined toward the left. Put a round piece of paper in the bottom of a charlotte mold, against its sides range a row of these uprights, inclining them according to their cut and alternating those with crusts with those without them. On this first row range a second the same way, only inclining the uprights in the opposite direction. Fill the charlotte with a banana "pain" preparation (No. 3195), and let harden in the ice-box for an hour and a half. Unmold the dessert on a dish, and just when ready to serve place a spun sugar ornament on top.

← No. 3141 Chateau Framboise Cold Entremets — Creams, Jellies & Charlottes No. 3143 Charlotte of Calville Apples →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a professional pastry brigade and leans on two cross-references the page does not reproduce, so the work here is mostly translation of vocabulary and assembly logic rather than cooking.

Genoese pasteThis is génoise — a whole-egg sponge built on a warm egg-and-sugar foam with folded flour and melted butter. Bake it in a sheet pan to a finished thickness of about 1 cm (three-eighths of an inch); a thinner sponge will not stand up as a wall.
The "pain" fillingA pain in this book appears to be a fruit purée lightened with whipped cream and set with gelatin — close to a fruit bavarian; No. 3195 is not reproduced here, so treat what follows as a reconstruction: roughly 1 lb of ripe banana purée, 1 to 1.5 cups of cream, sugar to taste, and about 2 teaspoons of powdered gelatin bloomed and dissolved. Acidulate the bananas with lemon juice or the purée browns visibly within minutes.
The hinge: the slanted uprightsThe point of the pattern is that the uprights lean in opposite directions and that pieces with browned crust alternate with pieces without. Cut the two bands in opposite directions before you touch the mold and keep them in two separate piles; the recipe does not say which way the crust should face.
Charlotte moldA plain, slightly tapered metal pail-shaped mold, commonly somewhere between 1 and 2 quarts. A straight-sided soufflé dish works if you line it, but the taper helps the unmolding.
The paper roundThe disc of paper at the base is a release aid, not decoration. Use parchment cut to the bottom diameter, and peel it off after unmolding.
Chilling timeAn hour and a half is short by modern practice; give a refrigerator at least 4 hours, or overnight. Gelatin continues to firm for several hours after it appears set, and an undercooled charlotte slumps the moment it leaves the mold.
UnmoldingDip the mold in warm — not hot — water for five to eight seconds, wipe it, and invert onto a chilled serving dish. Warm water on a gelatin set for too long melts the outer film of filling and softens the sponge.
Spun sugarSugar cooked to hard crack (300–310°F) and flicked into threads. It collapses in humid air within an hour or two, which probably explains why Ranhofer says to place it only at the moment of service.
YieldA charlotte of this size serves 8 to 10.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of some thirty years of cooking at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry shows the house style: a classical French form, an elaborate decorative wall, and a filling built on a fruit that had only recently become a reliable import. The charlotte itself is generally traced to the early nineteenth century and to Carême, who is usually credited with the version lined with sponge fingers and filled with bavarian cream — the charlotte russe — as against the older baked, bread-lined English apple charlotte. Names like bengalienne appear to have been fashionable garnish-labels in the period rather than geographic claims. The Central American banana trade of the 1870s and 1880s had made ripe fruit far more available in New York by the time Ranhofer wrote.