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Dessert

Swiss Cream

A chilled gelatin dessert made from heavy cream, sugar, lemon juice, white wine, isinglass, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Swiss Cream

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Swiss Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Divide the cream into two bowls.

  2. In one bowl, mix the sugar, lemon juice, and white wine.

  3. Add the second pint of cream and stir vigorously.

Set and mold

  1. Boil the isinglass in the water until reduced by half.

  2. When lukewarm, stir the isinglass into the cream mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into molds.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Cream + white winetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,760 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Cream + lemontop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Heavy cream
Provides richness and a smooth, creamy body to the dessert.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the lemon and wine.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright flavor that cuts through the richness of the cream.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic flavor to the cream mixture.
Isinglass
A gelling agent that sets the cream into a firm, sliceable shape as it cools.

The step that matters

Stir the cream in vigorously. The cream is added to a mixture that is acidic from the lemon juice and wine. Vigorous stirring disperses the cream evenly so that the acid is less likely to curdle it.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, sugar, white wine):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, white wine. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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