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Frozen Coffee Custard

A chilled custard made with coffee, milk, eggs, sugar, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Frozen Coffee Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the coffee in the milk until it turns pale brown, then strain it back into the kettle.

  2. Whisk together the eggs, cornstarch, and sugar, then add to the coffee mixture and cook until thickened.

  3. Let the custard cool, then stir in the cream with dissolved sugar.

Freeze

  1. Freeze the mixture in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.

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

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

  2. Coffee + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

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

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

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

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the custard as they cook and add richness.
Cornstarch
Starch thickens the milk mixture so the custard becomes smooth and set.
Cream
Adds fat for a rich, smooth texture that softens the frozen result.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and lowers its freezing point for a softer scoop.
Coarse ground coffee
Infuses the milk with coffee flavour and aroma.

The step that matters

Cook the custard until thickened. Egg and starch need enough heat to thicken the custard, but overheating can scramble the eggs. Cook gently and stir constantly to keep it smooth.

“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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