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Dessert

Swiss Cream

A dessert of soaked sponge cakes topped with a lemon-flavored cream, garnished with jelly, angelica, and dried cherries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Swiss Cream

Why it works: Lemon and angelica match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 189 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Swiss Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Place the macaroons or sponge cakes in a glass dish and soak them with sherry or fruit syrup.

Make the cream

  1. In a saucepan, combine cream, sugar, and lemon rind. Heat for about 30 minutes until flavored.

  2. Remove the lemon rind and add arrowroot mixed smooth with a little milk.

  3. Let it boil gently for 2-3 minutes, stirring well.

  4. Remove from heat and stir until nearly cold, then add strained lemon juice.

  5. Pour the cream mixture over the soaked cakes in the dish.

Garnish

  1. Garnish with red and yellow jelly, alternating with strips of angelica and a few dried 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.

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. Lemon + angelicatop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together189 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Arrowroot + angelicatop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Sherry + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

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

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 or syrup and form the soft base under the cream.
Cream
Provides richness and the body of the set custard-like layer.
Arrowroot
Thickens the cream as it boils, giving a smooth, sliceable set.
Sherry
Adds aroma and flavor to the soaked cakes.
Lemon
Adds aromatic citrus flavor from the rind and acidity from the juice.

The step that matters

Boiling the arrowroot mixture. Arrowroot thickens only when it boils, so it must be stirred well and kept at a gentle boil for the stated time. Stirring prevents lumps and scorching on the base of the pan.

Swap the angelica

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Angelicathe original
  4. Thymefits about as well

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