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Dessert

Coffee Mousse

A chilled dessert made with whipped cream, sugar, egg yolks, crushed ladyfingers, and coffee extract.

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

Coffee Mousse

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine whipped cream, granulated sugar, beaten egg yolks, and crushed ladyfingers in a bowl.

  2. Add coffee extract and mix well.

Chill and set

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered mold.

  2. Cover tightly and pack the mold in ice and salt for 3 to 4 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.

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

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and egg 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

Whipped cream
Whipped air and fat give the mousse its light, creamy body.
Egg yolks
Egg yolks enrich the mixture and help it set smoothly when chilled.
Ladyfingers
Crushed ladyfingers add body and a soft, cake-like texture.
Granulated sugar
Sugar sweetens the mousse and adds structure to the cream.

The step that matters

Pack the mold in ice and salt. Chilling slowly and evenly over several hours lets the mousse firm up without weeping or melting. The cover keeps moisture from condensing on the surface and diluting the 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.

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