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Drink

Coffee Syrup

A sweet syrup made by boiling coffee, water, and sugar, then adding soda foam and caramel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Coffee and sugar 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 Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the ground coffee and water together for a few minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture and add enough water to make ½ gallon.

  3. Add the sugar and bring to a boil.

Finish the syrup

  1. When cool, add the soda foam and caramel.

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 + sugartop 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

Ground coffee
Provides the coffee flavor and aroma that define the syrup.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and body, giving the syrup its thick texture.
Caramel
Adds deeper color and a toasty, caramel flavor.

The step that matters

Cool the syrup before adding the soda foam. Gases dissolve less readily in warm liquids, so adding the soda foam to hot syrup can lose much of its effect. Letting the syrup cool first helps it hold the foam and keeps the flavor balanced.

“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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