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Dessert

Swiss Cream

A layered dessert made with sweetened cream, lemon, and macaroons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Swiss Cream

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Swiss Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream

  1. Boil the cream in a saucepan and sweeten it to taste.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the flour with enough milk to make a thin batter.

  3. Pour the batter into the boiling cream while stirring continuously.

  4. Remove from heat and add the grated lemon rind and juice; mix well.

  5. Set aside to cool.

Layer and serve

  1. Cover the bottom of a glass dish with macaroons.

  2. Pour some of the cream mixture over the macaroons.

  3. Add another layer of macaroons, or use a layer of preserves instead.

  4. For best results, prepare the day before serving.

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

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

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Cream
Forms the rich, thick body of the dessert once heated and cooled.
Flour
Thickens the cream into a smooth custard-like texture when stirred into the boiling liquid.
Macaroons
Soak up the cream as layers, giving the dessert a soft, moist, layered texture.
Lemon
Adds aroma and a bright, acidic note that balances the sweetness of the cream.

The step that matters

Pour the batter into the boiling cream while stirring continuously. Flour thickens only when its starch is dispersed and heated; adding the batter to boiling cream while stirring prevents lumps and an uneven, grainy thickening.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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