Skip to main content
Dessert

Swiss Cream, or Trifle

A layered dessert of lemon-infused cream, macaroons, and candied citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 custard

  1. Infuse the cream with the lemon rind and cinnamon, then strain.

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

  3. In a saucepan, heat the remaining cream and bring it to a boil.

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

  5. Remove from heat and let it cool, then mix in the strained lemon juice.

Assemble and chill

  1. Layer macaroons in a glass dish, pour in part of the cream, and add more macaroons.

  2. Top with the remaining cream and garnish with thinly sliced candied citron.

  3. 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. Cinnamon + flourtop 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 trifle and sets as it cools.
Flour
Thickens the cream into a custard as it simmers with constant stirring.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Macaroons
Provide the layered structure and absorb moisture from the cream.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright flavour to the cooled custard.

The step that matters

Simmer the flour mixture while stirring constantly. Flour thickens only when its starch is heated in liquid and stirred, so skipping the constant stirring can leave lumps or a thin custard that does not set properly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipes