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Dessert

Cafe Parfait

A frozen dessert made with coffee, sugar, egg yolks, cream, and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Cafe Parfait

Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓

Cafe Parfait

Ingredients

Directions

Make the coffee and syrup

  1. Steep 2 cups of coffee in 2 cups of boiling water.

  2. Boil 1½ cups of sugar with ½ cup of water.

Make the custard base

  1. Beat the yolks of 5 eggs until smooth.

  2. Scald the yolks with the sugar water.

  3. Whip the yolks until thick and cold.

  4. Add the coffee to the egg mixture.

Fold and freeze

  1. Whip 1 quart of cream.

  2. Set aside ⅔ of the whipped cream.

  3. Whip the egg whites to a froth.

  4. Stir the froth into the reserved whipped cream.

  5. Combine the whipped cream mixture with the coffee mixture.

  6. Freeze the mixture.

Serve

  1. Sweeten the remaining whipped cream.

  2. Serve it on top of the frozen cream.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Coffee + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,339 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard base and add richness and smoothness to the parfait.
Cream
Adds fat and body, giving the frozen parfait a light, creamy texture.
Egg whites
Whipped to a froth, they add airiness and lightness to the frozen mixture.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and softens the texture of the frozen parfait.
Coffee
Provides the main flavour of the parfait.

The step that matters

Scald the yolks with the sugar water. Pouring hot syrup into the yolks while whisking gently warms them without scrambling. Adding it too fast or without stirring can cook the eggs in lumps, leaving a grainy custard.

“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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