Skip to main content
Dessert

Trifle or Swiss Cream

A lemon‑cinnamon trifle made with thin cream, macaroons, and candied fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Trifle or Swiss Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, combine the thin cream, lemon zest, and cinnamon.

  2. Take out ½ cup of the cream to mix with the flour to create a thin batter.

  3. Add the sugar to the saucepan and bring to a boil.

  4. Stir in the flour mixture and simmer for 4 minutes, stirring constantly.

  5. Remove from heat and let it cool.

  6. Once cooled, mix in the strained juice of the two lemons.

Assemble and garnish

  1. In a glass dish, layer the macaroons and pour the cream mixture over them.

  2. Garnish with whipped cream and thinly shredded candied citron or cherries.

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.

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. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Thin cream
Forms the body of the custard and gives it a rich, smooth texture.
Flour
Thickens the cream as it simmers, giving the mixture its set body.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Lemons
Add bright acidity and aroma through zest and juice.
Macaroons
Soak up the custard at the base, adding a chewy, almond-flavoured layer.

The step that matters

Simmer the flour mixture while stirring constantly. Flour must be heated while stirred so starch granules swell evenly and thicken the cream without lumps. Stopping stirring lets the mixture scorch or clump, and undercooked starch leaves a raw, pasty taste.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, flour, sugar, cinnamon. 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipes