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Dessert

Coffee Sponge

A light dessert made from coffee, sugar, gelatin, egg whites, and water, set into a mold and chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and coffee are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,344 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Coffee Sponge

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the coffee mixture

  1. Soak gelatin in cold water.

  2. Add soaked gelatin to hot coffee.

  3. Stir in sugar.

  4. Strain the mixture into a pan set in a larger pan of ice water.

  5. Cool slightly.

Whip

  1. Beat the mixture with a wire whisk until quite stiff.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  3. Fold the beaten egg whites into the coffee mixture.

  4. Continue beating until the mixture holds its shape.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into a mould that has been dipped in cold water.

  2. Chill thoroughly.

  3. Remove from the mould.

  4. Serve with sugar and thin 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.

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

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

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

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

  3. Coffee + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,239 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the coffee liquid into a firm shape as it chills.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam that gives the dessert a light, airy structure.
Strong boiled coffee
Provides the main flavour and the liquid base of the dessert.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the coffee mixture.

The step that matters

Fold the beaten egg whites into the coffee mixture. Folding gently keeps the air trapped in the whites. Stirring or deflating them makes the dessert dense instead of light.

“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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