The history of the creation of charlotte. Why is charlotte called that? How to cook it correctly

Charlotte loved all over the world, but in some places it’s a pudding, in others it’s a cold dessert, and in Russia it’s a simple pie with apples. In this article I will tell you about the history of the origin of this many-sided sweet, about its travels around the world, modifications and show step-by-step charlotte recipes with photos.

If you are looking for charlotte recipes with photos , then to save your time, you can follow the following links, where I prepared several types of charlotte

Charlotte- this is a simplified, folk, one might say affectionate derivative of “Charlotte”. There are two versions of the origin of the name:
1) Most of the legends associated with the creation of charlotte indicate that it comes from the female name "Charlotte".
2) Some culinary scientists claim (based on English recipes of the 15th century and later, which inspires confidence) that the name of the dessert charlotte comes from the English word charlyt, which means a dish made from beaten eggs, sugar and milk. In the 15th century, in England, by the way, a meat dish with the same name was also popular.

From various sources, I have collected almost all the available versions of Charlotte’s origin, some of them are quite funny:

1) Be that as it may, all modern types of charlotte come from English pudding. I placed this most realistic, in my opinion, version at the very beginning so as not to confuse you. It was the British who came up with this dessert, and what we have now arose relatively recently. In Foggy Albion, it seems that puddings are prepared from everything under the sun. The recipe for English charlotte is very simple, although there are also many variations. That first and simple charlotte was a cold dessert, the so-called “raw”, when moistened slices of bread were laid in layers, interspersed with chopped fruit.

The basis of both cold/raw and baked charlotte is moistened slices of bread or biscuit, which are used to lay out a small form, filling the middle with poached fruit. The most common option and favorite is apple charlotte. But slices of bread are soaked in everything, and in dissolved butter, and in syrup from stewed fruit, and in wine, and in Russia they really liked to soak bread in a mixture of eggs and milk (Oh, how many centuries have passed, but here They still love to soak bread slices for croutons in this egg-milk mixture).

2) This version is also English, but with royal participation.

In the 18th century, Great Britain was ruled by King George III, and his wife Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was the patroness of apple producers. It is believed that it was she who invented the Charlotte apple dessert. Of course, I didn’t search much, but I didn’t find any evidence for this theory. Since this pudding existed before Queen Charlotte, I think that she improved the recipe, but again, there is no information about this. But this version is beautiful, no doubt.

3) Many people know the romantic legend about the creation of charlotte by a certain cook from Great Britain, who was hopelessly in love with a girl named Charlotte, for whom he created a wonderful apple dessert and named it in honor of his beloved. Name, place of residence or work, and at least the time of life is lost forever, except for a dessert with a beautiful name. A dubious version, but it has been alive and well for a long time.

4) The French chef Marie Antoine Careme, who lived at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries, is often called the creator of charlotte. He was one of the founders of modern cooking, “haute cuisine,” he was called “the cook of kings and the king of cooks.” But he modified the charlotte, creating a new type, which is now called Charlotte Russe.

Illustration from Karem's book, he is on the right.

How it happened: Antoine Carême is said to have modified the charlotte in 1802 by lining the mold not with bread, but with Savoyardi cookies (“Lady fingers”), filling the middle with Bavarian cream with gelatin. This charlotte was a cold dessert and was called "Paris charlotte". But in 1814, Russian Tsar Alexander I entered Paris as a winner, for whom Karem prepared his dessert. Since then, this pie has been known throughout the world as "Charlotte Russe".

5) I left the most beautiful and funniest for you for last.

At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries in Russia there were many German bakeries that prepared this dessert from leftover bread and bakery products. The Russians laughed and said that German wives save money and even make pies from crackers, and the wives themselves, in general, were called Charlottes behind their backs. The name Charlotte was very popular at that time and became a household name for any German woman living in Russia (Wikipedia).

6) In America, they believe that their national charlotte was invented by a certain chef from the city of Charlotte, which is somewhat doubtful, given the similarity with the English recipe. Most likely, charlotte was brought by emigrants. In the 19th century, a proverb appeared in America, which is said when speaking about a typically American phenomenon or object: “As American as apple pie” (“As American as apple pie”).

The evolution of charlotte.

Although charlotte It is prepared with many fruits; the whole world loves its apple version.
So, initially charlotte- this is bread pudding, and its cold version, “raw”. Those. Slices of bread, moistened with syrup from boiled fruit, were placed in layers in a mold, and these fruits were laid out between the bread, and everything was covered with bread slices.
After charlotte They began to bake, the bread was already soaked in melted butter or wine, and even in a mixture of eggs and milk. But the bread slices were already laid out not in layers, but along the bottom and along the walls of the mold, filling the middle with poached fruit.
Antoine Carême did charlotte an elegant and very delicate dessert, replacing the bread with Savoyardi cookies and biscuit slices, and the apple filling with Bavarian cream.
In Russia in the 18th and 19th centuries, with a stream of foreign chefs, charlotte recipes, which adapted to our Russian realities, as a result of which rye bread charlotte was born. But Charlotte Russe didn’t catch on. At the beginning of the 20th century in our country charlotte turned into a very simple sponge cake with apples, which every housewife knows. So many generations have grown up simple apple charlotte recipe. And although our women are so talented that there are currently a great many variations of the simplest pie, everyone still dearly loves the classic charlotte recipe, it’s not even a recipe, but proportions that everyone adds to their own taste: 1 glass of flour, 1 glass of sugar, 4 eggs, 0.5 teaspoon of soda, slaked with vinegar. Nowadays, soda is replaced with baking powder and vanilla sugar is added.

Despite the fact that Charlotte Russe has not taken root in Russia, it is very popular in Europe and America. By the way, about America!
Charlotte came to this continent along with emigrants, but very quickly a legend was born that charlotte was invented by an American chef from a city called Charlotte. To the credit of the Americans, they somewhat modified charlotte, but for the better, giving birth to a new and wonderful pie, making it truly national and their pride.

Nowadays, three main types of charlotte are firmly established in the world, from which all culinary specialists are already dancing.
1. English charlotte-pudding, prepared from bread slices and apples, can be either “raw” or baked.
Of course, a great many recipes have accumulated over so many centuries, but for myself and for you, and for the sake of curiosity, I took a hundred-year-old recipe from the book “Practical Fundamentals of Culinary Art” by Pelageya Alexandrova-Ignatieva.

2. Charlotte Russe, born to the great Antoine Carême. This charlotte It is prepared by lining a mold with savoiardi cookies, and Bavarian cream with gelatin is poured inside the mold. Nowadays, Bavarian cream is mixed with various berry and fruit purees or chocolate, and the pie is topped with jelly, most often berry.
I prepared Karema's charlotte according to a combined recipe with a Russian twist: I lined the mold with Savoyardi cookies dipped in a mixture of sugar syrup and rum (most often Grand Marnier liqueur is used as alcohol), filled it with Bavarian cream with vanilla, and then added a layer of cranberry jelly on top.

3. Modern Russian charlotte with apples and, which is a classic sponge cake with the addition of apples to the dough.

Until the middle of the last century, there was even a special detachable form for charlotte and it was called charlotte! But, unfortunately, I could not find a single photograph or illustration of this unique shape, although some books say that it is small, narrow and tall with a removable bottom. Now, by the way, this is not tragic, since the stores are full of springform molds of various sizes. But if you have a photo or illustration of a charlotte and you can send it, I will be extremely grateful to you.

I hope you had a pleasant time reading my article. If you have anything to discuss on this topic, your thoughts and research on charlotte, additions to the material, clarifications or refutations, please write to me. Share your knowledge :)

P.S.: all pictures are taken from Google.

In our regular column “History of the Dish,” we have already talked about what products the first Caesar salad was made from, why the Bird’s Milk cake has such an unusual name, how Sophia Loren influenced the popularization of Carbonara pasta, and much more. Today HELLO.RU decided to introduce you to the history of the Russians’ favorite pie - charlotte.

Charlotte has gained such high popularity among housewives of our country for two reasons: firstly, it is quick and easy to prepare, and secondly, all the necessary products are accessible and inexpensive. It is believed that charlotte is a summer-autumn dessert, since it is during these seasons that a real apple “crash” happens in the gardens of many Russians.

Meanwhile, the first charlotte was prepared in a completely different country - England, and the genius who came up with this simple culinary formula was the French chef Marie Antoine Carême. Karem was the favorite chef of many kings and emperors in the 19th century. Alexander I was one of the admirers of Marie Antoine's exquisite dishes - Karem worked in his St. Petersburg palace for several years, coming into the possession of the emperor directly from the hands of the English king George IV. By the way, the name of the pie, according to one version, was given precisely in honor of the British royal person - the mother of George, Queen Charlotte.

The first “Russian charlotte” (that’s what it was called in the world) was prepared as follows: a layer of savoiardi biscuits was placed on the bottom of a baking dish and covered with whipped cream. Apples appeared in this pie a little later; by the way, even then it was customary to add nuts, cocoa powder and even raisins to the dessert along with crispy fruits. Then, during the time of I.V. Stalin, the dish was renamed “Russian babka” - there should not have been any hint of European roots in the favorite delicacy of the Soviet people.

Now in the CIS, almost any pie with apples is called charlotte. The dough for classic charlotte is mixed from flour, eggs and sugar, and chopped apples are added to it before baking.

In the middle of the last century, an unusual variety (although, in our opinion, this is a completely different dish) of “Russian charlotte” was popular in New York: biscuit dough filled with whipped cream and cocktail cherries was served in paper cups.

Today HELLO.RU will tell you how to prepare charlotte according to the recipe of the chef of the Prozhektor restobar.

Ingredients:

Green apples - 700 g

Eggs - 5 pcs.

Vanillin - 3 g

Flour - 160 g

Sugar - 170 g

Milk - 25 g

Baking powder - 10 g

Orange - 1 pc.

Lemon - 1 pc.

Cinnamon - 2 g

Cooking method:

1. Peel and core apples. Cut into slices and pour in squeezed orange and lemon juice, add cinnamon, stir.

2. Grate the zest on a fine grater. Beat the egg and sugar until stiff, add salt and zest. Add flour mixed with baking powder. Knead the dough and add milk at the end.

3. Layer the dough and apples into a greased pan. Sprinkle with sugar.

4. Bake for 30 minutes at 170 degrees, then for 20 minutes at 160 and 140 degrees.

Bon appetit!

Charlotte- pie with sweet cream and fruit. In Russia, the dish is common as a homemade pie with fruit filling (usually apples).

Story

The birthplace of charlotte is France. It was there that she appeared under the name Charlotte. Initially, the pie was prepared on white bread, with the addition of fruit, liqueur and sweet cream. The recipe was not considered simple.

There are several versions of the origin of the name charlotte. The first is romantic. The dish is named after a certain beauty Charlotte, with whom the famous chef fell in love. The second version refers us to the origin of the word charlyt, which has Old English roots and is translated as a sweet with cream. Finally, the most likely version is the name in honor of Queen Charlotte, who was the wife of George III and was very fond of apples.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the dish Charlotte Russe saw the light - the invention of a French cook who served under Alexander I. Her name was Marie Antoinette Carême. The same name is given by the famous French culinary specialist Auguste Escoffier. He suggests replacing the bread with the famous ladyfingers biscuits, and coating the cakes with Bavarian cream or vanilla ice cream with fruit.

Fillings

The fruit part in charlottes, as a rule, consists of apples, since this is a very affordable product for our latitudes. Thus, any village housewife can make charlotte - all she has to do is go to the garden and pick apples. Modern housewives who do not have gardens, but have money to go to markets and shops, are experimenting with a variety of fillings - from plums, pears, bananas, pineapples, etc.

Recipes from the culinary portal Povarenok.ru

Charlotte in Russian

Ingredients:

• Cookies "tongues" - 18 pcs.
• Sugar (150 g for cream and 50 g for greasing cookies) - 200 g
• Egg yolk – 5 pieces (or 10 quail)
• Milk - 300 ml
• Vanilla sugar - 1 tsp.
• Cream - 300 ml
• Butter - 1 tsp.

Preparation

Soak the gelatin in cold water (until it swells). At this time, grind the yolks and 150 g of sugar until white.

Add vanilla to milk and bring to a boil. Pour the milk in a thin stream into the yolk mixture, stirring continuously. Place on low heat and cook (again, stirring) until the cream thickens. Add gelatin and heat until dissolved. (Important: the cream should not thicken!). Cool. Whip the cream into a thick foam. Add cream to cream and stir.

Mix 50 g of sugar and 10 ml of boiling water, sprinkle the cookies with syrup, place the cookies along the walls of the pre-greased mold. Fill the middle of the mold with the mixture (make sure the cookies don’t fall), cover with a plate and put in the refrigerator. Let cool for at least 4 hours.

Immerse the mold in hot water for a few seconds so that the charlotte can be easily removed. You can decorate the cake with powdered sugar or cinnamon. Bon appetit!

Apple charlotte

Ingredients:

• Flour - 1 cup
• Egg - 4 pcs.
• Sugar - 1 glass
• Apple - 4 pcs.
• Vanillin or cinnamon

Preparation:

Grease a deep, wide mold well with butter, sprinkle with a little flour, and fill halfway with apples, thinly sliced. Pour the batter evenly over the apples. Let stand for 8-10 minutes so that the dough flows between the apples. Place in the oven, set the temperature to 150 degrees. Bake until done for 50-60 minutes.

Allow to cool in the mold, then you can turn it over or place it, without turning it over, on a plate, sprinkle with powdered sugar on top.

Charlotte is everyone's favorite and very popular dessert. Its recipe was invented many centuries ago. However, over the many years of its existence, it has changed several times. Therefore, the fascinating history of Charlotte deserves special attention.

“Charlotte” is considered to be a dish of English cuisine, since this dessert was once invented by local peasants as a sign of gratitude for the wife of George III, Queen Charlotte, to whom she was very kind. Also, mentions of “Charlotte” are found in old cookbooks from the second half of the 18th century. The dessert was a kind of bread pudding and was very simple because it did not require additional culinary processing.

Small pieces of bread were soaked in apple, pear or apricot syrup and laid out in layers with apple filling placed between them. The cooking technology is strikingly reminiscent of the well-known tiramisu in that the dessert was not baked, but simply cooled. And maybe charlotte is an early version of the most beloved delicacy of Italians.

Over the course of several centuries, the recipe has changed somewhat and is currently a sponge cake filled with apples. Of course, now housewives bake charlotte, but everyone can handle the preparation, both experienced and experienced pastry chefs and beginners.

The 1796 Oxford University English Dictionary states that charlotte is “a pudding made with sponge biscuits or pieces of sponge biscuits prepared in a special mold. Can be raw or baked. The most famous of the baked ones is apple.”

As we mentioned earlier, charlotte was originally a type of bread pudding, but after a couple of decades, French chefs made significant changes to the cooking recipe, for which there is historical evidence.

After the victory in the Patriotic War, Russian Tsar Alexander I entered Paris triumphantly on March 19, 1814. On this occasion, the then famous French chef Marie Antoine Carême prepared charlotte according to his own recipe. The sovereign liked the new, improved dessert incredibly, so much so that he wanted to take Karem to Russia. The chef refused to go, but still shared the secret recipe. This is how the “Russian Charlotte” appeared.

There is another legend about the appearance of charlotte. Rumor has it that one unknown chef was in love with a poor village girl named Charlotte, and this bright feeling prompted him to discover everyone’s favorite culinary masterpiece.

This apple pie was extremely popular in the 19th century. He came to the USA with emigrants, where he received a new name “Charely rooshe”, which was modified from “Charlotte russe”. In the New World, local chefs constantly improved the recipe and changed the composition of the dessert, so today the filling of the pie can be very diverse. These can be fruits and jams, as well as various jams, mousses and creams.

All over the world, French charlottes are considered the most delicious, but Russian pastry chefs try not to adhere to the French recipe, adding their own flavor to the preparation of the famous pie, because charlotte is loved and appreciated precisely for its versatility, ease of preparation and simple ingredients that can be found in any store or buy at the nearest market.

Charlotte is loved all over the world, but in some places it is a pudding, in others it is a cold dessert, and in Russia it is a simple pie with apples. In this article, I will tell you about the history of the origin of this many-sided sweet, about its travels around the world, its modifications, and show you step-by-step charlotte recipes with photographs.

Charlotte is a simplified, folk, one might say affectionate derivative of “Charlotte”. There are two versions of the origin of the name:
1) Most of the legends associated with the creation of charlotte indicate that it comes from the female name "Charlotte".
2) Some culinary scientists claim (based on English recipes of the 15th century and later, which inspires confidence) that the name of the dessert charlotte comes from the English word charlyt, which means a dish made from beaten eggs, sugar and milk. In the 15th century, in England, by the way, a meat dish with the same name was also popular.

From various sources, I have collected almost all the available versions of Charlotte’s origin, some of them are quite funny:

1) Be that as it may, all modern types of charlotte come from English pudding. I placed this most realistic, in my opinion, version at the very beginning so as not to confuse you. It was the British who came up with this dessert, and what we have now arose relatively recently. In Foggy Albion, it seems that puddings are prepared from everything under the sun. The recipe for English charlotte is very simple, although there are also many variations. That first and simple charlotte was a cold dessert, the so-called “raw”, when moistened slices of bread were laid in layers, interspersed with chopped fruit.

The basis of both cold/raw and baked charlotte is moistened slices of bread or biscuit, which are used to lay out a small form, filling the middle with poached fruit. The most common option and favorite is apple charlotte. But slices of bread are soaked in everything, and in dissolved butter, and in syrup from stewed fruit, and in wine, and in Russia they really liked to soak bread in a mixture of eggs and milk (Oh, how many centuries have passed, but here They still love to soak bread slices for croutons in this egg-milk mixture).

2) This version is also English, but with royal participation.

In the 18th century, Great Britain was ruled by King George III, and his wife Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was the patroness of apple producers. It is believed that it was she who invented the Charlotte apple dessert. Of course, I didn’t search much, but I didn’t find any evidence for this theory. Since this pudding existed before Queen Charlotte, I think that she improved the recipe, but again, there is no information about this. But this version is beautiful, no doubt.

3) Many people know the romantic legend about the creation of charlotte by a certain cook from Great Britain, who was hopelessly in love with a girl named Charlotte, for which he created a wonderful apple dessert and named it in honor of his beloved. Name, place of residence or work, and at least the time of life is lost forever, except for a dessert with a beautiful name. A dubious version, but it has been alive and well for a long time.

4) The French chef Marie Antoine Careme, who lived at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries, is often called the creator of charlotte. He was one of the founders of modern cooking, “haute cuisine,” he was called “the cook of kings and the king of cooks.” But he modified the charlotte, creating a new type, which is now called Charlotte Russe.

Illustration from Karem's book, he is on the right.

How it happened: Antoine Carême is said to have modified the charlotte in 1802 by lining the mold not with bread, but with Savoyardi cookies (“Lady fingers”), filling the middle with Bavarian cream with gelatin. This charlotte was a cold dessert and was called "Paris charlotte". But in 1814, Russian Tsar Alexander I entered Paris as a winner, for whom Karem prepared his dessert. Since then, this pie has been known throughout the world as "Charlotte Russe".

5) I left the most beautiful and funniest for you for last.

At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries in Russia there were many German bakeries that prepared this dessert from leftover bread and bakery products. The Russians laughed and said that German wives save money and even make pies from crackers, and the wives themselves, in general, were called Charlottes behind their backs. The name Charlotte was very popular at that time and became a household name for any German woman living in Russia (Wikipedia).

6) In America, they believe that their national charlotte was invented by a certain chef from the city of Charlotte, which is somewhat doubtful, given the similarity with the English recipe. Most likely, charlotte was brought by emigrants. In the 19th century, a proverb appeared in America, which is said when speaking about a typically American phenomenon or object: “As American as apple pie” (“As American as apple pie”).

The evolution of charlotte.
Despite the fact that charlotte is prepared with many fruits, the whole world has fallen in love with its apple version.
So, initially, charlotte is a bread pudding, and its cold, “raw” version. Those. Slices of bread, moistened with syrup from boiled fruit, were placed in layers in a mold, and these fruits were laid out between the bread, and everything was covered with bread slices.

Then they began to bake the charlotte, the bread was soaked in melted butter or wine, and even in a mixture of eggs and milk. But the bread slices were already laid out not in layers, but along the bottom and along the walls of the mold, filling the middle with poached fruit.
Antoine Careme made charlotte an elegant and very delicate dessert, replacing the bread with Savoyardi cookies and biscuit slices, and the apple filling with Bavarian cream.

In Russia, in the 18th and 19th centuries, with the flow of foreign chefs, charlotte recipes poured in, which were adapted to our Russian realities, as a result of which rye bread charlotte was born. But Charlotte Russe didn’t catch on. At the beginning of the 20th century, in our country, charlotte turned into a very simple sponge cake with apples, which every housewife knows. So many generations have grown up with a simple recipe for apple charlotte. And although our women are so talented that there are currently a great many variations of the simplest pie, everyone still dearly loves the classic charlotte recipe, it’s not even a recipe, but proportions that everyone adds to their own taste: 1 glass of flour, 1 glass of sugar, 4 eggs, 0.5 teaspoon of soda, slaked with vinegar. Nowadays, soda is replaced with baking powder and vanilla sugar is added.

Despite the fact that Charlotte Russe has not taken root in Russia, it is very popular in Europe and America. By the way, about America!
Charlotte came to this continent along with emigrants, but very quickly a legend was born that charlotte was invented by an American chef from a city called Charlotte. To the credit of the Americans, they somewhat modified charlotte, but for the better, giving birth to a new and wonderful pie, making it truly national and their pride.

Nowadays, three main types of charlotte are firmly established in the world, from which all culinary specialists are already dancing.
1. English charlotte pudding, made from bread slices and apples, can be either “raw” or baked.
Of course, a great many recipes have accumulated over so many centuries, but for myself and for you, and for the sake of curiosity, I took a hundred-year-old recipe from the book “Practical Fundamentals of Culinary Art” by Pelageya Alexandrova-Ignatieva.

2. Charlotte Russe, born to the great Antoine Carême. This charlotte is prepared by lining a mold with savoiardi cookies and pouring Bavarian cream with gelatin into the mold. Nowadays, Bavarian cream is mixed with various berry and fruit purees or chocolate, and the pie is topped with jelly, most often berry.
I prepared Karema's charlotte according to a combined recipe with a Russian twist: I lined the mold with Savoyardi cookies dipped in a mixture of sugar syrup and rum (most often Grand Marnier liqueur is used as alcohol), filled it with Bavarian cream with vanilla, and then added a layer of cranberry jelly on top.

3. Modern Russian charlotte with apples, which is a classic sponge cake with apples added to the dough.

Until the middle of the last century, there was even a special detachable form for charlotte and it was called charlotte! But, unfortunately, I could not find a single photograph or illustration of this unique shape, although some books say that it is small, narrow and tall with a removable bottom. Now, by the way, this is not tragic, since the stores are full of springform molds of various sizes. But if you have a photo or illustration of a charlotte and you can send it, I will be extremely grateful to you.