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Dessert

Swiss Trifle

A layered dessert of sponge buns, raspberry jam, sherry, custard, and toasted almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Raspberry and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 552 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Swiss Trifle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Slice the sponge buns.

  2. Lay the sliced buns in a glass dish.

  3. Pour the sherry over the buns.

  4. Cover the buns with raspberry jam.

Make the custard

  1. Mix the cornflour smoothly with cold milk.

  2. Boil the remaining milk with the lemon rind and sugar.

  3. Pour the boiled milk onto the cornflour mixture.

  4. Return the mixture to the pan and stir, cooking well.

  5. Beat the eggs.

  6. Stir the thickened milk into the beaten eggs.

  7. Let the custard cool.

Assemble and decorate

  1. Pour the custard over the trifle.

  2. Blanch the almonds.

  3. Cut the blanched almonds into thin strips.

  4. Stick the almond strips all over the top.

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. Raspberry + almondtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together552 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Raspberry + lemontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,109 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Raspberry + sherrytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together109 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sherry + almondtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together517 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sponge buns
Form the soaked base layer that holds the sherry and jam.
Sherry or raisin wine
Soaks into the sponge, adding moisture and a sharp, fruity aroma.
Raspberry jam
Adds sweetness and fruit flavour, and moistens the sponge beneath the custard.
Milk
Forms the body of the custard once thickened with cornflour and egg.
Cornflour
Thickens the milk into a smooth custard as it cooks.
Egg
Enriches the custard and helps it set to a creamy texture.

The step that matters

Return the mixture to the pan and stir, cooking well. Cornflour only thickens fully when the mixture reaches a boil and is stirred constantly; undercooked starch leaves the custard thin and pasty. Stirring also prevents lumps and scorching on the base of the pan.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raspberry, sherry, almond, milk, egg, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raspberry, sherry, almond, milk, egg, sugar. 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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