Lemon Charlotte: A Royal Dessert

 A box of cookies, condensed milk and some lemons is all you need to make this delicious dessert. It is ideal for an afternoon snack or for dessert after lunch. Today we are going to give you a delicious yet simple recipe from Lemon Charlotte. 

It is very similar to lemon pie although with lemon pie you add eggs and sugar directly to the cookies. Read on and learn how to make this tasty French dessert.

Ingredients for Lemon Charlotte

To make Lemon Charlotte, the main ingredients are a can of evaporated milk, a can of condensed milk   and at least two cartons of Maria cookies. The secret of this dessert is in the cookies.

As far as the quantities are concerned, the can of evaporated milk should contain 360 ml. In general, a can of condensed milk contains 397 grams and you need 170 grams of cookies.

Of course, we must not forget our main ingredient: the lemon. Six to eight lemons (1 kg) should be enough for the amount of juice we need. The actual amount is 16 tablespoons of juice, about 200 ml.

Optionally, you can add extra flavor with half a can of cream (225 gr) and two teaspoons of ground cinnamon. These are extra ingredients and you don’t need them for the original recipe. It all depends on what you want.

Lemon Charlotte recipe

• First juice the lemons.
• Then pour the juice into a large glass bowl.
• Then combine the evaporated milk and condensed milk.
• The mixture must be well mixed, so we recommend using a blender.
• When it’s mixed well, we’re going to make the layers of the Lemon Charlotte.
• To do this, take a cake tin and place the first layer of Maria biscuit in the tin. Arrange them so that they overlap.
• Once you’ve made a bed of biscuits, pour some of the creamy mixture over the top.
• Place another layer of cookies on top of this sticky mixture in the same manner as the first layer.
• Then pour the rest of the cream over it. Since this part comes from the bottom of the bowl, it is thicker and has more lemon flavor.

Finally put it in the freezer

The nice thing about this recipe is that you don’t have to use the oven at all because the cookies are ready-made. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. You put the Lemon Charlotte in the freezer where you have to leave it for at least 30 minutes, so that it can harden.

There are people who want to leave it in the fridge all day and not use the freezer at all. Both ways are good although the second method gives you more control over the final result. You will then be able to see that it has hardened well, without freezing it too much.

Before serving, you can sprinkle a little ground cinnamon on top. Some people also grate some lemon zest on top. Both toppings enhance both flavor and presentation. You could even put whipped cream over it.

Lemon Charlotte, the dessert of queens

Some versions of the story claim that the dessert came from England, during the reign of King George III. As the story goes, the dessert got its name from his wife, Charlotte van Mecklenburg-Strelitz.

Another story suggests that the dessert’s creator, Marie-Antoine Carême, created it by adapting a recipe called Charlotte Russe. And hence the Charlotte was named in honor of the wife of the Tsar Nicholas I, Charlotte of Prussia.

We may never know which Charlotte gave her name to this tasty dessert. What we do know is that it definitely deserves royal status in the dessert kingdom.