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Dessert

Swiss Cream

A layered dessert of macaroons or sponge cakes with a lemon‑flavored cream thickened with arrowroot, finished with sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Swiss Cream

Why it works: Arrowroot and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 553 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Swiss Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Layer the macaroons or sponge cakes in a glass dish and pour enough sherry over them to cover.

Make the cream

  1. In a lined saucepan, combine the cream, sugar, and lemon rind. Heat by the fire until well-flavored, then remove the lemon rind.

  2. Mix the arrowroot smoothly with the cold milk and add it to the cream. Boil gently for about 3 minutes, stirring well.

  3. Remove from heat and stir until nearly cold. Add the lemon juice and pour the mixture over the cakes.

Garnish

  1. Garnish with strips of angelica, candied citron, or bright-colored jelly or preserve.

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. Arrowroot + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  4. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  5. Arrowroot + sherrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together129 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream
Provides richness and a smooth, thick body to the set custard.
Arrowroot
Thickens the cream into a smooth, glossy mixture as it boils.
Macaroons or sponge cakes
Form the soaked base layer that absorbs the sherry and holds the cream.
Lump sugar
Sweetens the cream and adds body to the mixture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet, rich cream.

The step that matters

Mix the arrowroot smoothly with the cold milk before adding it. Arrowroot clumps if it meets hot liquid undispersed. Dissolving it in cold milk first lets its starch spread evenly, so when the cream boils gently it thickens smoothly without lumps.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, sugar, arrowroot, milk, sherry):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, arrowroot, milk, sherry. 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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