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Charlotte Russe with Quinces
Tie a strip of sponge cake about a mould. Dip macaroons in caramel sugar and press on the cake; remove string. Dip ends of ladyfingers in caramel, set on top and tie. Beat solid a pint of chilled cream with a third of a cupful of fine sugar; flavor with vanilla, cool. Slip the case into the dish, half full with preserved quinces, and cover the top with cream and macaroons.
A no-bake, no-gelatin charlotte: a collar of sponge cake and ladyfingers glued together with caramel, filled with quince preserve and whipped cream. The construction is the whole difficulty, and the caramel is what makes it stand.
- Caramel is the glue, and it sets fastPlain sugar melted to a light amber acts as the cement holding macaroons to the cake band and the ladyfingers upright. Work quickly, keep the pan warm over the lowest heat, and dip only the point of contact instead of coating the biscuit.
- Caramel burns are not ordinary kitchen burnsMelted sugar runs above 300F and sticks to skin. Keep a bowl of ice water beside the pan and dip biscuits with tongs rather than fingers.
- "Beat solid a pint"A pint is two cups of heavy cream, whipped to stiff peaks with about a third of a cup of superfine sugar. Chill the bowl and beaters; cream below 45F whips faster and holds longer.
- The mouldThe mould was a deep tin, usually slightly tapered rather than perfectly straight-sided, and commonly around 6 to 7 inches across. Any straight-sided cake tin or soufflé dish of that size works, since the cake case is built around the outside of it and then lifted off.
- Macaroons here are almond macaroonsNot coconut and not French macarons — the crisp almond-and-egg-white kind, which is why they take caramel without collapsing. Italian amaretti are the closest thing on a shop shelf.
- Preserved quincesQuince cooked in heavy syrup until deep rose-red; membrillo paste, thinned slightly with a spoonful of its own syrup or a little water, gives the same flavour. Drain well, or the syrup will slacken the cream.
- "Remove string" means only after the caramel has set"Remove string" — The string is a clamp, not decoration. Leave it in place until the caramel at the joins has hardened, or the case may splay when filled.
- Assemble lateSponge and biscuits soften against cream and syrup within a couple of hours. Build the case ahead, fill and top no more than an hour before serving, and keep it cold.
- YieldA 6- to 7-inch charlotte serves six to eight, cut in wedges with a thin-bladed knife wiped between cuts.
Charlotte russe is generally traced to Marie-Antoine Carême, who is said to have named the cold version "à la russe" in the early nineteenth century; the older English charlotte was a baked pudding of buttered bread and fruit, while the Russian version is cold, cased in ladyfingers and filled with cream. By the time American cookbooks of the 1890s and 1900s took it up it had become a standard dinner-party sweet, with variants distinguished largely by the fruit folded through or spooned underneath. Quince earns its place because it was a preserving-cupboard fruit rather than a fruit-bowl one — too hard and astringent to eat raw, but high in pectin and turning a deep red when cooked long in sugar, so a jar of it was on hand for exactly this sort of use.