Skip to main content
Dessert

Cafe Parfait

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Cafe Parfait

Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Cafe Parfait

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the coffee gelatine

  1. Soak ½ box of gelatine in ½ cup of cold water for 30 minutes.

  2. Pour 1 cup of clear, strong coffee over the soaked gelatine.

  3. Add 1 cup of sugar and stir until dissolved; strain and let cool.

  4. Whip 1 cup of cream and fold it into the coffee mixture until it thickens.

  5. Transfer to a freezer and stir until firm.

Make the cream

  1. Whip 1 pint of cream until stiff, adding ½ cup of powdered sugar and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract.

Mold and freeze

  1. Pack the whipped cream into a mold, layering with the coffee mixture an inch thick on the outside.

  2. Fill the center with whipped cream, cover with the coffee mixture, and seal the mold with a cover.

  3. Wrap the edge of the mold with letter paper, dip a piece of muslin in melted butter, and cover the joint.

  4. Pack in salt and ice and let stand for at least 2 hours.

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 + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  2. Coffee + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,391 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  4. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Gelatine
Sets the coffee mixture into a firm, sliceable body as it chills.
Cream
Whipped air and fat give the parfait a light, creamy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the coffee and softens the bitterness of the strong coffee.
Clear, strong coffee
Provides the main coffee flavour and liquid for the gelatine.

The step that matters

Stirring the coffee mixture until firm in the freezer. Gelatine needs to be partly set and evenly cooled before folding in cream; if it is too cold or too warm, the mixture can clump or fail to thicken smoothly, leaving an uneven texture.

“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

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesCoffee Ice CreamCoffee Ice Cream91 recipesCoffee CustardCoffee Custard27 recipesCoffee CakeCoffee Cake21 recipes