Name: Coffee Jelly
Ingredients: ½ box gelatin; ½ pint water; 1 pint coffee; 1 cup sugar; sweetened cream (for serving)

Why it works: Gelatin and cream 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 Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

Soak the gelatin in ½ pint of water for one hour.
Boil 1 pint of coffee with 1 cup of sugar for five minutes.
Strain the mixture into a mold.

Serve

Serve with sweetened cream.

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.

Gelatin + creamtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,628 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Gelatin + sugartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,778 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Coffee + creamtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,339 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,344 recipes

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