No. 3143

Charlotte of Calville Apples

Charlotte de Pommes de Calville

Cut in four pieces eight or ten Calville apples; peel and cook them in a covered saucepan with a little water, very little sugar, a bit of lemon peel and half a vanilla bean. When done and all the moisture is evaporated, press them through a sieve. Cover the bottom of a charlotte mold with lady finger biscuits, or else butter biscuit for charlotte, cooked on a baking sheet covered with paper, three-eighths of an inch thick and cut up into long triangles, and form them into a rosette without any open space whatever between the pieces. From the same biscuits cut some even upright pieces three inches wide and the same height as the mold, which should be kept on ice. Pour the apple pulp into a round-bottomed pan and dilute with a gill of syrup mingled with a sheet and a half of gelatine that has been softened and dissolved. Stir the preparation on ice to thicken, and as soon as it begins to set pour in quickly two or three spoonfuls of good rum and then a quart of whipped cream. Two minutes after turn this into the charlotte mold and surround it with chopped ice, leaving it thus for one hour, and when needed unmold the charlotte on a folded napkin.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's charlotte is an apple mousse set in a lady-finger case — closer to a cold soufflé than to the baked apple charlotte of English cookery. The whole dish depends on getting the apple base to the point of setting before the cream goes in.

The hinge: fold at the right momentStir the sweetened, gelatined apple purée over ice only until it begins to thicken and cling to the spoon, then work fast — rum first, cream immediately after. Fold in cold cream too early and the whole thing separates into a sunken apple layer under foam; too late and the base seizes into lumps you cannot fold out.
Calville applesCalville Blanc d'Hiver, the classic French dessert apple, cooks to a fragrant, near-frothy purée. If you cannot find it, use a variety that breaks down completely and tastes of something: Golden Delicious, Bramley, or a Reinette. Avoid Granny Smith, which stays sour and watery here.
A gill of syrupA gill is half a cup. "Syrup" in The Epicurean generally means a plain sugar syrup — roughly equal weights of sugar and water, boiled and cooled. Ranhofer calls for very little sugar in the apples themselves, and most of the sweetness arrives here.
Gelatine sheets are ambiguousNineteenth-century leaf gelatine varied in size and strength, and "a sheet and a half" cannot be converted with confidence. Modern sheets run roughly 1.7-2 g each; taken literally, that would give a very slack set for this quantity of purée and cream, and some modern cooks use closer to 10-12 g total. Judge by whether the base thickens on ice rather than by the count.
A quart of whipped creamRead this as a quart of volume after whipping — about 2 cups of heavy cream beaten to a soft, barely-holding peak. Cream whipped stiff will not fold into a setting purée without breaking it.
The mold and the iceA charlotte mold is a plain tapered cylinder with small handles, about 6-7 inches across; a soufflé dish or a straight-sided cake tin lined with a collar of parchment will do. "Surround with chopped ice" means an ice bath — the refrigerator does the same job, but give it three to four hours rather than one, since a domestic fridge is warmer than packed ice.
Lining the moldThe rosette on the bottom and the upright pieces must meet edge to edge with no gaps, or the mousse bleeds through and the unmolded charlotte collapses at the seam. Trim the uprights flush with the rim before filling; they can be leveled again after chilling.
YieldA standard charlotte mold of this size serves eight to ten. Unmold onto a folded napkin, as directed, or onto a chilled platter — the napkin absorbs the melt and keeps the charlotte from sliding.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially his working file — thousands of numbered formulas, of which the cold charlottes fill a long run. The form is generally traced to Antonin Carême, who took the English baked apple charlotte and stood it on its head: a mold lined with biscuit and filled with a cold, gelatine-set cream, served unmolded. Ranhofer's version returns the apple to a charlotte russe framework, which is why the fruit here is puréed to nothing and lightened with a quart of whipped cream rather than left in slices. The Calville Blanc d'Hiver was the dessert apple of the French kitchen, a winter variety that also came to be grown in the United States. The instruction to pack the mold in chopped ice is a reminder of what a professional kitchen of the period had that a home one did not: reliable, purchased ice in quantity.