Skip to main content
Dessert

Swiss Cream

A lemon-flavored cream dessert served over macaroons.

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

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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream

  1. Boil the cream with the grated lemon rind and sugar for 10 minutes.

  2. In a bowl, mix the lemon juice with the flour until smooth.

  3. Pour the hot cream mixture into the lemon juice mixture and stir well.

Serve

  1. Place macaroons in a dish and strain the cream over them.

  2. Prepare this a day in advance for best results.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Lemon + sugartop 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).

Lemon and sugar 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

Cream
Provides richness and a smooth, creamy body to the dessert.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright lemon flavour that cuts through the cream.
Flour
Thickens the lemon mixture so the cream sets smoothly when combined.
Macaroons
Form the base layer that the cream is poured over, adding almond sweetness and texture.

The step that matters

Pour the hot cream mixture into the lemon juice mixture and stir well. Adding hot cream to the lemon and flour mixture while stirring constantly helps the flour disperse evenly and prevents lumps, giving a smooth, uniformly thickened result.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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

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