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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) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Swiss Cream, or Trifle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream

  1. In a saucepan, combine the cream, lemon rind, and cinnamon. Heat over medium heat until boiling.

  2. Mix 4 teaspoons of flour with a small amount of the cream to form a smooth batter.

  3. Stir the flour mixture into the boiling cream and simmer for 4-5 minutes, stirring constantly.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool completely. Once cool, mix in the strained juice of 2 fresh lemons.

Assemble and chill

  1. In a glass dish, layer half of the macaroons, then pour in half of the cream mixture.

  2. Add the remaining macaroons on top, followed by the rest of the cream.

  3. Garnish with thinly sliced candied citron.

  4. Refrigerate overnight 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. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 body of the custard and sets as it cools.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the cream into a smooth, spoonable custard as it simmers.
Macaroons
Soak up the cream and soften, giving the trifle its layered texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet, rich cream.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour into the cream. Flour must be mixed into a smooth batter first and then simmered for the full time while stirring constantly. Otherwise it stays lumpy or tastes raw, and the cream does not thicken evenly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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