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Drink

Meringued Coffee

A coffee served with whipped cream and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Meringued Coffee

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Brew a rich and clear coffee.

  2. Pour the coffee into cups and add sugar and boiling milk to taste.

  3. Whip the cream until light and sweeten it lightly.

  4. Heap a spoonful of whipped cream on top of each cup of coffee before serving.

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

Strong brewed coffee
Provides the main bitter, roasted flavour that the milk and cream soften.
Boiling milk
Adds creaminess and mellows the bitterness of the coffee.
Whipped cream
Its fat and trapped air give a light, rich topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the coffee and the cream, balancing the bitterness.

The step that matters

Whipping the cream. Whipping traps air in bubbles coated with fat, which makes the cream light. Overbeating lets the fat clump together, leaving a grainy, buttery texture, so stop as soon as the cream holds soft peaks.

“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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