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Dessert

Swiss Cream, or Trifle

A layered dessert of lemon-flavored cream, ladyfingers, and candied citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 30% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,640 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Swiss Cream, or Trifle

Ingredients

Directions

Assemble

  1. In a glass dish, layer the bottom with ladyfingers.

  2. Pour in half of the cream and sprinkle with lemon juice.

Infuse the cream

  1. Infuse the remaining cream with the thin rind of a lemon for flavor.

  2. Strain the cream before adding it to the dish.

Finish

  1. Top with the rest of the cream and garnish with candied citron.

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 + lemontop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,640 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 body of the trifle and provides richness and a soft, creamy texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and flavor of the cream.
Ladyfingers
Soak up moisture from the cream, giving the trifle a soft, cake-like structure.

“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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