Skip to main content
Dessert

Coffee Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made from milk, coffee, sugar, egg, cream, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Coffee Ice Cream

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Coffee Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Scald the milk with the ground coffee.

  2. In a bowl, mix the sugar, flour, and salt, then add the slightly beaten egg.

  3. Gradually pour the hot coffee mixture into the egg mixture, stirring constantly.

  4. Cook over hot water for twenty minutes, stirring occasionally.

Finish and freeze

  1. Cool the mixture, then add the cream and vanilla.

  2. Strain through a double layer of cheesecloth and freeze.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  5. Milk + coffeetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

Egg
Thickens the custard as it cooks, giving the ice cream a smooth, rich body.
Milk
Forms the creamy base that carries the coffee flavor and softens the texture.
Thin cream
Adds fat for a smooth, rich mouthfeel and keeps ice crystals small.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and lowers the freezing point for a softer scoop.
Flour
Stabilizes the custard so it thickens without curdling during cooking.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard over hot water. The egg mixture must thicken gently. Overheating can scramble the egg and make the base grainy, so stir steadily and keep the water below a hard boil.

“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.

More coffee ice cream recipes

Philadelphia 3 See all 119 →

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesCoffee CustardCoffee Custard27 recipesCoffee CakeCoffee Cake21 recipesCoffee Bavarian CreamCoffee Bavarian Cream14 recipes