Chocolate Charlotte
This delicious, cool, and light dessert is the perfect treat for a warm summer day. We love it because it's easy to make, but has a striking appearance and delicious taste!
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For the first step of this project, you have a couple of options.
Option 1: To make the base and surrounding ladyfinger cookies, you'll need to whip up a savoiardi (Italian ladyfinger) sponge batter and pipe out each individual cookie for the sides, as well as a large spiral cookie for the base. This does take some time and a little finesse to make the cookies the same size and shape so that they will be the same height on your finished dessert. We chose to free-hand our cookies (not recommended) and ended up with this mostly uniform but somewhat more "homemade" looking concoction. We recommend drawing out 3x1 inch rectangles on the underside of your parchment paper for a more professional looking finished product.
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Option 2: You can always purchase soft lady finger cookies at your local grocery store or bakery. For the base, line the bottom of a springform pan with ladyfingers, overlapping them slightly to prevent the filling from leaking through. Then, arrange the remaining cookies along the sides of the pan. This will be just as delicious as the homemade version and will take a fraction of the time!
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For the filling, simply make the mousse and pour it into the center of the cookies. You will want to allow it to set for a while (at least 4 hours, but we recommend longer). We chose to set our mouse for around 2 hours in the freezer. This did not end up being long enough for our charlotte, as some of the mousse in the very center started to cave in under the weight of our berries, so keep that in mind if you want to put any toppings on your charlotte.
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The last step is decorating. Once your mousse is nice and firm, you will want to carefully remove the sides of your springform pan and tie the sides together with a ribbon for presentation. It should be able to hold up without a ribbon, but it adds a nice touch. After this step, you can top it off with any combination of berries, whipped cream, or chocolate shavings. We chose to add blueberries and blackberries to ours, with a sprinkling of powdered sugar on top.
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This dessert was a huge crowd pleaser, and we found the recipe to be relatively fool-proof, so go ahead and give it a try! I think you'll surprise yourself with how amazing it turns out!
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Link to the recipe used below:
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Chocolate Charlotte:
