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Charlotte Russe Au Cafe
Prepare a charlotte russe, mixing well two tablespoons strongly made cold coffee in the whipped cream.
This is a one-line variation, not a standalone recipe: it assumes you already have a charlotte russe formula to hand. What it tells you is the ratio, and that ratio is the whole point.
- What the base isA charlotte russe of this period is a mold lined with ladyfingers or thin sponge and filled with sweetened whipped cream set with gelatin, chilled until firm and turned out. It is not baked, and it is not the fruit-and-bread charlotte.
- Two tablespoons is not muchFor a filling built on a pint of cream, two tablespoons of coffee gives a pale, barely-there flavor. "Strongly made" is doing the work here — use espresso or a very concentrated brew, cooled completely, or the flavor disappears into the cream.
- Cold, and for a reasonWarm liquid slackens whipped cream and will soften gelatin that has already begun to set. Brew the coffee ahead and refrigerate it.
- Add it early, not lateFold or whisk the coffee into the cream while it is still loose, before it reaches soft peaks. Beating extra liquid into cream that is already whipped risks slackening it, though the recipe as written directs the coffee into the whipped cream.
- Gelatin is not optionalIf your base recipe uses gelatin, as many of this era do, remember that the coffee is extra liquid. Around 1 envelope (2 1/4 tsp) of powdered gelatin per pint of cream will hold an unmolded charlotte; leaf gelatin at the same weight works much the same. Period recipes calling for 'a box' of gelatine refer to a package of a different size from a modern envelope, so measure rather than substitute directly.
- LadyfingersTrim one end flat so they stand upright against the mold, sugared side out, packed tight with no gaps. Store-bought Italian savoiardi are drier and firmer than fresh ladyfingers and hold the wall better.
- ChillingFour hours minimum, overnight is better. Dip the mold briefly in warm water and invert onto a cold plate.
- YieldA charlotte built in a 1 1/2-quart mold from a pint of cream serves eight to ten. It is rich, and the portions should be small.
The charlotte russe is generally traced to Antonin Carême, who is said to have adapted the older English apple charlotte — baked, bread-lined, hot — into a cold construction of sponge fingers and Bavarian cream, naming it for the Russian court where he briefly cooked. Whether the tsar's name or Queen Charlotte's stands behind the dish is unsettled, and the story is told both ways. By the time this book appeared the charlotte russe was assembled from familiar parts: a mold, a box of gelatine, a pint of cream, and a packet of ladyfingers from the bakery. Its usefulness lay in being infinitely variable, which is why a book like this can dispose of the coffee version in a single sentence — the reader was assumed to know the base by heart and to want only the flavoring.