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Dessert

Swiss Cream

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

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 cakes

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

Make the custard

  1. Combine the cream, sugar, and lemon rind.

  2. Heat gently until the cream is flavored.

  3. Remove the lemon rind.

  4. Mix the arrowroot with the cold milk until smooth.

  5. Add the mixture to the cream.

  6. Boil gently for about 3 minutes, stirring constantly.

  7. Remove from heat and stir until nearly cool.

  8. Add the lemon juice and pour the mixture over the cakes.

Garnish

  1. Garnish with strips of angelica, candied citron, or colorful 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

Macaroons or sponge cakes
Soak up the sherry and form the base layer that the cream sets over.
Cream
Provides richness and the body of the finished custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and adds body to the custard.
Arrowroot
Thickens the cream into a smooth, glossy custard when boiled.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet, rich cream.

The step that matters

Boil the arrowroot mixture gently while stirring constantly. Arrowroot thickens when heated but can clump or scorch if left unstirred. Constant stirring keeps the starch dispersed so the custard thickens smoothly and evenly.

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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