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Dessert

Coffee Drops

A sweet candy made from sugar, glucose, cream, water, burnt sugar, coffee extract, and coated in sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Drops

Ingredients

Directions

Make the candy

  1. In a kettle, combine sugar, glucose, cream, and water.

  2. Cook the mixture to 250°F (121°C).

  3. Remove from heat and color with burnt sugar.

  4. Flavor the mixture with a strong extract of coffee.

  5. Pour the mixture onto a slab and let it cool.

Shape and coat

  1. Once cool, knead the mixture well and shape it.

  2. Run the shaped candy through a lemon drop roller.

  3. Coat the drops in XXXX sugar, sift off excess sugar, and place them in pans for storage.

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. Cream + coffeetop 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
Provides sweetness and, once cooked, the firm crystalline body of the candy.
Glucose
Inhibits crystallization, keeping the candy smooth and less grainy.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, softening the candy's texture.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture to 250°F (121°C). Cooking to this temperature drives off water so the sugar sets firm when cooled. Undercooked mixtures stay sticky, while overcooked ones become 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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