Fresh Fruit Cake (Fruit Charlotte cake)

How is it about saving this fruit charlotte cake recipe and making it today, or maybe later? This red fruit cake is one of the prettiest cakes that combines a sponge cake, Bavarian cheese mousse, and fresh red fruits. It is a fancy-ish cake for any celebration!

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The truth is that I love desserts, and I bake a lot, but it is true as well that sometimes I make such a dessert that I get speechless.

It happens when the beauty of the cake is combined with the incredible taste of the dessert.

And it is called red fruit charlotte, or charlotte aux fruits rouges in French.

Fruit charlotte recipe

I discovered this charlotte cake recipe accidentally. I was looking for some baking inspirations on the web when I saw that baked beauty!

My future baking projects lay down on the endless list most of the time, but this cake had to be baked immediately.

The original charlotte recipe is a creation of the French company Ladurée, but I adapted the recipe a lot to make the cake at home.

The chef's recipe calls for some fancy French ingredients: Vitpris pectin and Liqueur Kuhri Menthe Vive; so, I omitted them.

Moreover, I did not make an additional biscuit layer, cooked the red fruit confit and froze it as a disk, changed some ingredients and their amounts.

Here is a gorgeous and stunning fresh fruit cake for your judgment. Is it a masterpiece?

Could you describe it as a showstopper and a winner of the table? Or is it everything all together?

What is a charlotte cake?

A charlotte is a classic molded French dessert served cold or hot. A mold is usually lined with ladyfingers, sponge cake, or bread dipped in butter for a cold charlotte.

Then it is filled with a fruit puree, custard, a combination of fruit puree and whipped cream, or Bavarian cream.

As for a hot charlotte, the mold is lined with stale bread dipped in butter and filled with, for example, sautéed apples and then baked.

History of charlotte cake

It is considered that the first hot charlotte (la charlotte chaude in French) was created in the 17th century and was named after Queen Charlotte, wife of George III, grandmother of Queen Victoria.

As an alternative, Russian Charlotte (Charlotte à la Russe in French) - a cold-molded dessert (la charlotte froide) made with Bavarian cream and lined with ladyfingers - was created by a French chef, Marie Antoine Carême, who worked for Russian Czar Alexander I.

How to decorate charlotte

Most charlotte cake recipes call for fresh fruits on top of the dessert.

You can arrange them neatly as Audrey from Pardon your French decorated her Strawberry Charlotte Cake or throw fruits un-patterned as I did (the recipe below).

Brush the fruits with a neutral glaze or apricot preserve like Stephanie from Joy of Baking decorated the top of her Strawberry Charlotte, or leave fruits fresh and un-glazed.

If you desire, mix fresh red berries with raspberry jam/preserves and arrange them on top of the charlotte.

Charlotte cake charlotte aux fruits is often tied with a ribbon as a part of their decoration.

Why you should try this recipe

1. This fresh fruit cake is a gorgeous dessert that would fit any celebration table - serve it as a birthday fruit cake, celebrate Independence Day ("the Fourth of July" in the USA) - or enjoy a slice with your afternoon tea or coffee.
2. The charlotte recipe is straightforward: make the cake within a day or split the preparation into two days. It is not as complicated as it seems!

Ingredients

Here is a quick overview of what ingredients you will need. Follow the full recipe below for exact amounts and instructions. I recommend making this recipe as written for the best results. 

Flour: use all-purpose flour.

Sugar: the recipe calls for granulated white sugar.

Potato starch: the recipe calls for potato starch, not corn starch. Both are interchangeable in most recipes, but this recipe is an exception: you want to get a nice and clear fruit layer.

If you use corn starch instead, you will end up with the slightly opaque fruit layer.

Eggs: use large whole eggs.

Red food color: use as much as you want to get the red color of the biscuit (I added about 100 drops of the red food color by McCormick to the dough).

Gelatin: use gelatin sheets (gold) with a strength of 200 bloom. To substitute sheet gelatin with powdered gelatin, consider that 3 ½ gelatin sheets equal one powdered gelatin envelope. Use ¼ cup (60ml) of cold water per envelope.

Red fruits: use any three kinds of seasonal fresh red fruits out of this list - raspberries, cherries, blackcurrant, blueberries, blackberries.

Whipping cream: use cold whipping cream (with at least 30%fat content) to whisk it properly.

Cottage cheese: use fresh farmer cottage cheese, preferably dry curd cottage cheese (not the regular curd cottage cheese that is salty).

How to make red fruit cake

To make the red fruit confit, cover a 6 inches/15 cm round stainless steel cutter with doubled plastic film, making a plastic bottom, and put it aside. Soak gelatin in cold water for 10 minutes.

In a saucepan, place the whole berries and half of the sugar. Heat the mixture over low heat for about 5 to 10 minutes, stirring from time to time.

Add the rest of the sugar mixed with potato starch, stirring constantly, and let boil for 1 minute.

Remove the saucepan from heat and stir in the drained gelatin (photo 1). Pour the confit into the ring and freeze for 3 hours (photo 2).

To make the biscuit, preheat the oven to 340 degrees F/170 C. Using a flour sifter, sift flour, and potato starch.

Separate egg whites from egg yolks with an egg separator and reserve the whites.

Using an electric mixer in a bowl, beat egg whites and gradually add the rest of the sugar until glossy (photo 3).

In a separate bowl, whisk yolks with half of the sugar until whitish (photo 4).

Then add the beaten egg whites to the egg yolks/sugar mixture (photo 5).

Add the dry sifted mixture (flour and starch) in several times and mix it with a rubber spatula (photo 6).

Add red food color as much as you wish and gently mix (photo 7).

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and spread the dough to the thickness of about ⅕ inches/5 mm with a bent spatula (photo 8).

Bake for about 10 minutes and let it cool.

Invert the baked biscuit on a sheet of parchment paper and remove the parchment paper from its bottom.

Cut a biscuit disk of 6.7 inches/17 cm in diameter (use a cake ring or a plate) and strips of 2 inches/5 cm wide.

Line a mousse cake mold adjusted to 7 ½ inches/19 cm in diameter with an acetate cake collar and place it on parchment.

Cover the inside edges of the mold with strips and place the biscuit disk at the bottom of the cake mold: it has to fit inside the lined mold perfectly (photo 9). 

To make the cheese mousse, soak gelatin in cold water for 10 minutes. Whisk whipping cream to get the whipped cream and refrigerate (photo 10).

In a saucepan, bring sugar and water to a boil. In a separate bowl, beat egg yolks with an electric mixer.

Add the hot sugar syrup to the yolks, whisking constantly. 

Then add the drained gelatin while the mixture is hot and continue to beat until the preparation completely cools down (photo 11).

Add farm cottage cheese and mix with a rubber spatula (photo 12).

Finish by adding the whipped cream and whisk with a hand whisk (photo 13). Transfer the mouse in a pastry bag fitted with Ateco plain pastry tip 806.

To assemble the cake, spread a single spiral (a bit less than ½ inches/1 cm thick) of the cottage cheese mousse.

Place a frozen red fruit confit disk in the center and fill the remaining space to the edges with the mousse (photo 14).

Add another layer of cheese mousse (a bit less than one inch/2 cm thick) - it equals two spirals pushed from the pastry bag.

Finish the charlotte by making waves or a spiral on top using the bent spatula (photo 15). Refrigerate for at least 4 hours, better overnight.

To unmold the cake, remove the mousse cake mold and lift it away. Peel the acetate cake film and discard it.

Decorate the top of the cake with red berries (photo 16) and sprinkle with powdered (icing) sugar.

Expert tips

1. Make-ahead tip: make the red fruit confit and freeze it one day in advance. Make and assembled the cake the next day.
2. To make the fruit confit, replace fresh red fruits with frozen ones. As for the decoration, they are too watery: choose another way to decorate the cake.
3. To freeze the confit, adjust a mousse cake mold to the required diameter if you do not have the correct size of a round stainless steel cutter. 
4. If you do not have time to freeze the fruit confit disk, let it cool down. While pushing the mousse spiral, lift the mouse around, and set it aside (better in the fridge) for 10 minutes. Then place the cooled confit in the center of the cheese mousse. Refrigerate for 10 minutes again. Finish with the thick layer of the mousse as directed in the recipe. 
5. Pass the farm cottage cheese through a fine-mesh sieve if you prefer to obtain a more homogeneous mousse.
6. Once the mousse is ready, assemble the charlotte relatively quickly since the mousse will begin to set up with time due to included gelatin.
7. Do not worry about the top of the cake: as long as it is even, it is enough to decorate it with fresh fruits later.
8. Add fresh mint leaves as decor on top of the charlotte if you desire.

Frequently asked questions

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The recipe was adapted from C'est pa de la tarte. It was originally published on October 24, 2018. The recipe has been revised to include improved content and photos. All the posted pictures are mine.