Name: Charlotte Russe
Yield: Serves 6–8
Cuisine: French
Ingredients: ¼ teaspoon baking powder; 1 cup plus 3 tablespoons (140 g) flour; 2 eggs; ½ cup (100 g) plus 2 tablespoons superfine sugar; 2–4 tablespoons granulated sugar, depending upon the sweetness of the strawberries; ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon; 2 cups (285 g) strawberries, stemmed and halved lengthwise; 1¼ cups (300 ml) heavy cream; 1½ teaspoons powdered gelatin or 2 gelatin sheets; 10–12 large firm strawberries; ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract; 2 teaspoons granulated sugar, preferably vanilla sugar; 4 egg yolks; ¾ cup (180 ml) milk; 2 tablespoons water; 1 envelope (about 2½ teaspoons) powdered gelatin or 5 gelatin sheets; ⅓ cup (140 g) granulated sugar; Juice of ½ lemon; ⅔ cup (160 ml) water; Other fruits or edible flowers as desired (optional)

Preparation info

Serves
6–8

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

The Official Downton Abbey Cookbook

By Annie Gray

Published 2019

About

Another of Downton’s iconic dishes, charlotte russe is a cold, set sweet dish, with a mixture of Bavarian cream and jelly ringed with sponge finger biscuits. It’s related to trifle, but while trifle is a very English dish, this is very French, and was invented by Chef Antonin Carême in the early nineteenth century. It appears at Downton a lot, sometimes unmentioned but lurking distinctively in the background and at other times brought to the fore. It’s one of the dishes cooked by Eth