Skip to main content
Drink

Vienna Coffee

A coffee beverage made with coffee, egg, boiling water, cream, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Vienna Coffee

Ingredients

Directions

Make the coffee

  1. Mix coffee and egg in a pot.

  2. Pour in enough boiling water to cover the coffee.

  3. Let the coffee froth, then stir down the grounds.

  4. Boil for 5 minutes, then keep hot (but not boiling) for 5 to 10 minutes.

  5. Add the remaining boiling water.

Prepare the cream and serve

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg white into the cream.

  2. Serve the cream with sugar in cups, then add hot coffee.

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 + sugartop 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. Egg + sugartop 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

Coffee
Provides the main coffee flavour and aroma of the drink.
Egg
Its proteins help bind the coffee grounds so they settle and clarify the liquid.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, softening the coffee's bitterness and giving a smooth texture.
Egg white
Beaten into the cream to lighten it and give a thicker, airier topping.

The step that matters

Keep the coffee hot but not boiling. Once the coffee has boiled and the grounds have been stirred down, boiling it again can make it taste harsh and bitter. Holding it just below a boil lets the grounds settle while keeping the flavour clean.

“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.

You might also like

Brown Coffee with EggBrown Coffee with Egg175 recipesEgg CoffeeEgg Coffee20 recipesCoffee MilkCoffee Milk12 recipesPostum CoffeePostum Coffee9 recipes