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Dessert

Coffee Cream Fondant

A sweet, creamy confection made from sugar, coffee, and cream of tartar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 Cream Fondant

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine sugar, steeped coffee, and cream of tartar in a saucepan.

  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves.

  3. Continue cooking until the mixture reaches the soft ball stage.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

  5. Beat until creamy and spreadable.

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

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

  2. Coffee + creamtop 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).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Forms the sweet, crystalline structure of the fondant once it is cooled and beaten.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the syrup, helping prevent large sugar crystals from forming for a smoother texture.
Steeped coffee
Adds liquid to dissolve the sugar and provides the coffee flavor.

The step that matters

Continue cooking until the mixture reaches the soft ball stage. Sugar syrup must reach the right concentration, which soft ball stage indicates. Stopping early leaves the fondant too soft to set, while overcooking makes it hard and grainy once beaten.

“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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