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Dessert

Ground Coffee Chocolates

A candy made by cooking sugar and water, adding coffee, shaping into balls, and dipping in chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Coffee and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,497 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells buttery, creamy. The science ↓

Ground Coffee Chocolates

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 242°F (117°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the syrup

  1. In a large pot, combine sugar and water with cream of tartar.

  2. Cook the mixture until it reaches 242°F (117°C).

  3. Pour the hot mixture onto a damp slab.

Add coffee and shape

  1. Sprinkle the finely ground coffee over the mixture and cream it together.

  2. Let the mixture set for one hour.

  3. Roll the mixture into small balls.

Coat

  1. Dip each ball in sweet chocolate.

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. Coffee + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (buttery, creamy).

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

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

  3. Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Forms the candy base and provides most of the sweetness and firm body.
Cream of tartar
Its mild acid helps keep the sugar smooth rather than grainy as it cooks.
Finely ground coffee
Adds the main coffee flavour and aroma to the candy.
Sweet chocolate
Forms a sweet outer coating that adds flavour and a contrasting texture.

The step that matters

Cooking the mixture to 242°F (117°C). At this temperature the sugar solution reaches the concentration that sets the candy firm once cooled. Stopping early leaves it soft and sticky, while cooking too long makes it hard and brittle.

“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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