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Dessert

Swiss Trifle

A layered dessert of cream, lemon, macaroons, ratafia cakes, almonds, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,456 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Swiss Trifle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Blend the ground rice with the cream to make a smooth batter.

  2. In a saucepan, heat the pint of cream with the lemon rind and sugar, simmering for 15 minutes while stirring continuously.

  3. Carefully add the ground rice mixture to the simmering cream and stir until combined.

  4. Pour the mixture into a dish to cool, and when nearly cold, mix in the lemon juice and brandy.

Assemble and serve

  1. Soak the macaroons and ratafia cakes in brandy, then pour the cream mixture over them and let it set.

  2. Garnish with split blanched almonds.

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. Rice + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  3. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Cream + brandytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Ground rice
Thickens the cream into a smooth, sliceable set custard.
Cream
Provides richness and fat, giving the custard a silky texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Macaroons
Soak up brandy and form the soft base layer under the custard.
Ratafia cakes
Soak up brandy and add almond flavour and a soft, moist base.

The step that matters

Stirring the ground rice into the simmering cream. Ground rice thickens by starch gelatinising in hot liquid. Adding it to simmering cream while stirring constantly keeps the batter smooth, while lumps or scorching would leave a grainy custard.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, cream, sugar, brandy, almond):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, cream, sugar, brandy, almond. 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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