Traditional Swiss Dessert Recipes

Traditional Swiss dessert recipes often call for lots of dairy-rich cream, milk, butter, and eggs. That's why these authentic desserts taste so delicious — fresh, wholesome ingredients.

You'll love eating the Swiss cake, pudding, and creams. You won't believe how good they taste! Try them and you'll imagine yourself enjoying a delicious Swiss dessert at an outdoor cafe in Zurich.

Traditional Swiss Dessert Recipes

With a Saucepan Over the Sea (1902)

Swiss Roll / Baked Pancake

Mix 1/2 pound powdered sugar with the yolks of 4 eggs, beaten light, add 1/4 pound of flour and the whites, beaten stiff. Line a dish with oiled paper, sift confectioners' sugar thickly inside, pour in the batter, sift more sugar on top, and bake about 7 minutes in a hot oven (425°F).

Spread with a favorite jam, roll it up and serve, hot or cold, cut into slices.

Honey Cakes of Basle, Switzerland

Melt 2 ounces butter, add 1/2 pound of honey, stirring well, take off the fire, and let it cool. Add the minced rind of a lemon, 2 ounces sweet almonds, chopped fine, a little nutmeg, 1/2 ounce carbonate of soda (baking soda), dissolved in a little water.

Mix these well, and set in a cold place 12 hours. Roll out 1/2 inch thick, cut into squares, decorate with nuts and chopped citron, then bake 25 minutes in hot oven (425°F). This recipe makes 1 dozen.

Geneva Buns

Make a batter of 1 pound of flour, a spoonful of baker's yeast, and 1/2 pint milk. Let it rise for an hour, add 1 beaten egg mixed with 1/2 cup of milk, 2 ounces sugar, and 2 tablespoons of candied peel and currants.

Cover and let rise for 1/2 hour, make into rolls, brush with egg, and bake for 20 minutes in hot oven (425°F).

Honeycomb Cream

Strain and sweeten the juice of 2 lemons and an orange, add 1-1/2 pints of hot cream or rich milk, set these in a pan of hot water, stirring until thick, then pour from a height into a glass dish, so as to froth it well.

Set on ice, and when firm, serve. This traditional Swiss dessert recipe is easy to make and delicious.

Swiss Alpine Baskets / Meringues

Make a mixture of whites of eggs and sugar as used for kisses and meringues, drop in large spoonfuls on buttered paper, set on a board and bake until yellow.

If the spoonfuls have been given the right shape — a pastry bag is the best thing to use — the "baskets," which must be scooped out of any soft part in the center, will be a good shape.

Stand them on end, let them dry, and fill with whipped cream, sweetened and flavored with a little cordial or vanilla. Drop small red strawberries over the tops.

Fannie Farmer's Version of a Traditional Swiss Dessert Recipe

The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book (1916)

Swiss Cream Dessert

Ingredients: 1/4 lb of macaroons or 6 small sponge cakes, sherry, 1 pint of cream, 5 oz of lump sugar, 2 large tablespoonfuls of arrowroot, the rind of 1 lemon, the juice of 1/2 lemon, 3 tablespoonfuls of milk.

Mode:

Lay the macaroons or sponge cakes in a glass dish, and pour over them as much sherry as will cover them, or sufficient to soak them well.

Put the cream into a lined saucepan, with the sugar and lemon rind, and let it remain by the side of the fire until the cream is well flavored, when take out the lemon rind.

Mix the arrowroot smoothly with the cold milk; add this to the cream, and let it boil gently for about 3 minutes, keeping it well stirred. Take it off the fire, stir till nearly cold, then add the lemon juice, and pour the whole over the cakes.

Garnish the cream with strips of angelica, or candied citron cut thin, or bright-colored jelly or preserve.

Note: This cream is exceedingly delicious, flavored with vanilla instead of lemon: when this flavoring is used, the sherry may be omitted, and the mixture poured over the dry cakes.

Time: About 1/2 hour to infuse the lemon rind; 5 minutes to boil the cream. Sufficient for 5 or 6 persons. Seasonable at any time of the year.

Traditional Swiss Dessert Recipe

The Woman Suffrage Cook Book, Second Edition (1890)

Swiss Cake

One and one-half cups sugar, one cup milk, three cups flour, four tablespoons butter, two eggs, one and a half teaspoonfuls cream of tartar, one teaspoonful soda. —Mrs. B. M. Nichols

Miss Parloa's Traditional Swiss Dessert Recipe

Miss Parloa's New Cook Book (1882)

Swiss Pudding

Ingredients: One teacupful of flour, four tablespoonfuls of butter, three of sugar, one pint of milk, five eggs, the rind of a lemon.

Method:

Grate the rind of the lemon (the yellow part only, remember) into the milk, which put in the double boiler.

Rub the flour and butter together. Pour the boiling milk on this, and return to the boiler. Cook five minutes, stirring the first two.

Beat the yolks of the eggs and the sugar together, and stir into the boiling mixture. Remove from the fire immediately.

When cold, add the whites of the eggs, beaten to a stiff froth. Have a three-quart mold, well buttered. Turn the mixture into this, and steam forty minutes. Turn on a hot dish, and serve without delay.

Creamy sauce, or a tumbler of currant jelly, melted with the juice of two lemons, should be served with it.

Traditional Swiss Dessert Recipes

365 Foreign Dishes (1908)

Swiss Peach Custard

Line a well-buttered pudding dish with slices of sponge cake and cover with peach compote. Make an egg custard and cover with the custard; set in the oven to bake (325°F).

Beat the whites of 2 eggs with a little lemon juice and pulverized sugar, spread on the top, and let brown. Serve cold.

Swiss Pancakes

Peel and grate 4 raw potatoes; mix with 1 ounce of butter, 1 ounce of breadcrumbs, 1/4 pint of milk, 1 large tablespoonful of Swiss cheese, the yolks of three eggs, and the whites beaten stiff.

Season with salt and pepper and mix with 1 tablespoonful of flour to a smooth batter; then fry in hot lard until brown. Serve hot.