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Dessert

Coffee Mousse

A chilled dessert made with whipped cream, gelatin, sugar, and strong coffee.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and gelatin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,628 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Coffee Mousse

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mousse

  1. Whip the cream until stiff and place it in a bowl over cracked ice or snow.

  2. Dissolve the gelatin in the strong coffee.

  3. Add the sugar and coffee mixture to the whipped cream.

  4. Strain the coffee mixture into the whipped cream and gently fold together.

Freeze

  1. Pack the mixture into a freezer, but do not turn the freezer.

  2. Optionally, add nuts before freezing.

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. Cream + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  4. Cream + coffeetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,339 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + coffeetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Heavy cream
Whipped into air bubbles that give the mousse its light, airy structure.
Gelatin
Sets the coffee liquid so the mousse holds its shape when frozen.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the bitterness of the coffee.
Strong coffee
Provides the main coffee flavour and dissolves the gelatin.

The step that matters

Fold gently after straining the coffee into the cream. Folding keeps the air bubbles in the whipped cream intact, which is what gives the mousse its light texture. Stirring hard would deflate the cream and make the mousse dense.

“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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