Apple Charlotte

After all the heavy, winter puddings, a summery trifle! Traditionally, a charlotte involves a mold lined with buttered bread filled with a layer of fruit preserves and then custard. A trifle uses ladyfingers or sponge cake, soaked in liqueur, and filled with fruit and whipped cream. This recipe uses a charlotte filling with a trifle cake. For more variations on charlottes and trifles, see the notes below.

What you have here is the original recipe first, followed by my understanding of it.

From Averil's Book

"Stew a dozen pared, cored, and sliced tart apples until soft, sweeten well and rub through a colander. Set again over fire while you stir in the yolk of 3 eggs. As soon as it is hot (it must not boil) turn into a bowl to cool. When cold, beat in the white of the eggs mixed with a tablespoon of powdered sugar. Line a glass dish with sliced sponge cake or lady fingers, pile the apple within it and cover with macaroons neatly fitted together. Set on ice until wanted."

Jill's suggestion

• A dozen tart apples, pared, cored, and sliced
• 1/4 cup sugar or more to taste
• 3 eggs (possibly separated, see note)
• 1 tablespoon powdered sugar

The original recipe uses uncooked egg whites in Step 3 to make a lighter custard. If you are concerned about the safety of uncooked eggs, use the whole eggs in Step 2.

Preparation: Make or buy a sponge cake (see Averil's recipe), or lady fingers for the base, and macaroons (recipe below) for the top. Choose a pretty bowl for serving. I often see trifles in a glass bowl with straight sides, so the lady fingers stand up nicely.

Step 1. Make the applesauce: Cook the apples with sugar and enough water that they don't stick or burn. Mash them push them through a colander. Or buy a jar of applesauce.

Step 2. Make apple custard. Beat the eggs (or just the yolks). Stir them into the applesauce. Heat over low heat (or in a double boiler), stirring constantly until the mixture is thick. It should not boil.

Step 3. If you still have the egg whites, beat them with powdered sugar until they are stiff. Fold them into the custard.

Step 4. Assemble. Line the bottom and sides of the bowl bowl with slices of sponge cake or lady fingers. Pour the apple custard into the cake, smooth the top and cover it with macaroons. Keep the charlotte in the refrigerator until serving time.

Macaroons

• 1 cup almond paste
• 1 cup confectioners sugar
• 3 egg whites

Cream the almond paste and sugar confectioners sugar. Add the egg whites, gradually working the mixture until it is quite smooth. When the mass is perfectly smooth, drop it from the end of a spoon into little piles on a buttered pan. It may spread when baking, so allow room on the sheet for this emergency. A pastry bag assists with the business of shaping the macaroons.

If you don't have almond paste, there is a recipe for Cornflake Macaroons among Grace's sweets. But, really, store bought is probably better than cornflakes.

Some Notes on Charlottes

I wondered where the name came from.

The Oxford English Dictionary has a very different "charlet," a custard pudding with meat. Sounds odd, but medieval cooks weren't afraid to sweeten their meat. Plum puddings, fruit cakes and mincemeat all used to have meat in them. According to the OED a charlet first appears in The Forme of Cury, an English cookbook from 1390. That recipe is a custard of milk, eggs, saffron, ginger and finely minced pork. A 15th-century version adds ale.

The charlotte we know today is more recent. Historian Joyce White places the earliest English reference to apple charlotte in 1789. It was likely named in honor of Queen Charlotte, wife of George III, who was a patron of apple growers. White gives a lovely recipe from Virginia (in both 1824 and modern versions), using buttered and fried bread to hold stewed apples, in which the charlotte is unmolded, covered with fine suger and glazed under a broiler.

Another variation is Charlotte Russe, using ladyfingers and Bavarian cream custard, devised by chef, Marie-Antoine Carême (1784–1833). He named it "Russe" in honor of his then employer, Czar Alexander I of Russia, and "Charlotte" in honor of Princess Charlotte, the only child of his previous employer, George IV of England.

A New York Charlotte Russe was a popular take-out treat from the 1930s to 1950s: a paper cup filled with pound cake covered in a mound of whipped cream and topped with a maraschino cherry.