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Dessert

Swiss Cream

A layered dessert of sponge cakes or macaroons soaked in sherry, topped with a lemon-flavored cream thickened with arrowroot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Swiss Cream

Why it works: Arrowroot and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 553 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Swiss Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Layer the macaroons or sponge cakes in a glass dish.

  2. Pour enough sherry over them to cover well.

Make the cream

  1. In a lined saucepan, combine the cream, sugar, and lemon rind.

  2. Heat gently by the fire until well-flavored.

  3. Remove the lemon rind.

  4. Mix the arrowroot smoothly with the cold milk. Add it to the cream.

  5. Boil gently for about 3 minutes, stirring constantly.

  6. Remove from heat and stir until nearly cold.

  7. Add the lemon juice.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour the mixture over the cakes.

  2. Garnish with strips of angelica, thinly cut candied citron, or bright-colored jelly or preserve.

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. Arrowroot + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  4. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  5. Arrowroot + sherrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together129 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream
Forms the rich, smooth body of the custard when heated and thickened.
Arrowroot
Thickens the cream into a smooth, set custard without clouding it.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and balances the lemon and sherry.
Macaroons or sponge cakes
Soak up the sherry to form the moist base beneath the custard.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet, rich cream.

The step that matters

Boil gently while stirring constantly. Arrowroot thickens when heated but can break down or turn thin if overheated or left unstirred. Constant stirring prevents scorching on the base and lumps, giving an even, smooth custard.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, arrowroot, milk, sherry. 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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