Simply Divine: Lemon Charlotte!

With this recipe for lemon charlotte you conjure up a divinely delicious dessert that can also be served with coffee like a cake.

A lemon charlotte is easy to prepare without baking and is ready in the refrigerator until the guests arrive. You can also prepare the lemon charlotte the day before and let it steep so that it becomes more juicy. As a dessert or on the coffee table, this dessert is wonderful, especially in summer!

Try the lemon charlotte!

A charlotte like this is basically a dessert or sweet dish that consists of ingredients that are layered together cold and that have to set in the refrigerator. Often Charlottes are also spherical.

Lady fingers or biscuit bases are often the basis for a charlotte. In our recipe for the lemon charlotte we use shortbread biscuits. Basically, the Charlotte also works with other hard-baked biscuits. Maybe you use lemon biscuits for your personal recipe variant of the lemon charlotte?

Here is our recipe:

Ingredients for lemon charlotte:

This lemon charlotte tastes particularly good when you serve it ice cold from the fridge in summer. You need the following ingredients for this:

• 2 packs of shortbread biscuits (or lemon biscuits)
• 400g natural yogurt
• 150g sugar
• 2 lemons (organic!)
• 200ml whipped cream
• 5 sheets of gelatin

If you choose low-fat natural yoghurt and a reduced-fat product to whip up, you will reduce the calorie and fat content of the lemon charlotte. If you then replace the sugar with a calorie-free sweetener, you will further reduce the calorie content significantly.

Make sure that the lemons come from certified organic cultivation, because you need the peel to give the lemon charlotte its intense lemon taste. Conventional lemons are not only treated with various pesticides, but also have poisons on their peel that prevent mold and waxes for a beautiful shine. None of that belongs in a lemon charlotte!

Preparation of the cream

Yes, the recipe contains gelatin and we know that many home cooks are afraid of going wrong with gelatin. However, this recipe does not contain any ingredients that use enzymes to break the action of gelatine. Don’t be afraid, you will definitely succeed! How to proceed step by step:

• Soak the gelatine leaves in a shallow bowl in cold water. To do this, place leaf by leaf one after the other in the bowl so that each leaf is surrounded by water and can soak well.
• Wash the lemons and rub their peel with a fine grater or pull them into small thin strips with a zest zipper

• Only then press out the lemon juice and make sure that no seeds get into the juice.
• Now mix the sugar into the lemon juice and make sure that it dissolves well before you stir the sweet juice into the yogurt.
• Whip the cream until stiff and fold it into the homemade lemon yogurt.
• Squeeze out the gelatin well and put it in a saucepan. Heat the gelatin slowly until it is liquid, but do not allow it to boil!
• Then carefully add 2-3 tablespoons of the yoghurt mixture to the gelatin and stir both well to form a slightly glassy mixture.
• Gradually add the gelatin mixture to the yogurt mixture and add the grated lemon peel at the end.

The cream is now ready and you should prepare the baking pan to make a lemon charlotte out of the cream and biscuits.

Preparation of lemon charlotte

To make the lemon charlotte look pretty, you can layer the biscuits in different layers. There are no limits to your imagination!

• First, line a shape with cling film. This can be a loaf pan, a casserole dish or a springform pan. Take what you have, it will always be delicious!
• Line the bottom of the pan with shortbread cookies. If you like, line the edge of the mold with cookies as well.
• Now put a first layer of lemon cream on top of the biscuits and then layer another layer of biscuits on top.
• As with lasagna , continue the process until you run out of lemon cream. The last layer should be biscuits.

• Now place the lemon charlotte in the refrigerator and wait a few hours for the charlotte to set. Depending on the shape, this can take 2-4 hours.
• The longer you let the Charlotte steep, the juicier the cookies will be.
• Before serving, turn out onto a plate and peel off the cling film.

We are sure that you will not only succeed in this divine dessert, but will also taste good for you and your guests. You can of course use oranges instead of lemons and orange biscuits instead of shortbread biscuits. Once you have understood the basic recipe, there are many more recipe ideas with other fruits such as strawberries, raspberries, apricots, …