Skip to main content
Dessert

Swiss Cream, or Trifle

A layered dessert of lemon‑flavored cream, macaroons, and candied citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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, or Trifle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream

  1. Flavor the cream with lemon rind and cinnamon.

  2. Take ½ cup of cream and mix it smoothly with the flour.

  3. In a saucepan, heat the remaining cream over a clear fire until it boils.

  4. Stir in the flour mixture and simmer for 4-5 minutes, stirring gently.

  5. Pour the mixture out.

  6. Let it cool completely.

  7. Gradually mix in the strained juice of the lemons.

Layer and serve

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

  2. Pour in part of the cream mixture.

  3. Layer the remaining macaroons on top.

  4. Add the rest of the cream.

  5. Garnish with sliced candied citron.

  6. Prepare this dish 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.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Rich cream
Forms the thick, smooth body of the dessert.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the cream as it cooks, giving it a set, spoonable texture.
Refined sugar
Sweetens the cream and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemons
Add acidity and bright aroma through their rind and juice.
Macaroons
Add a crisp, sweet, almond-flavoured layer that soaks up some of the cream.

The step that matters

Cooling before adding the lemon juice. Acid added to hot, thickened cream can cause it to curdle or turn thin. Letting the cream cool completely first keeps it smooth when the lemon juice is stirred in.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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

More swiss cream recipes

Trifle 17 See all 36 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes