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Dessert

Coffee Parfait

A chilled dessert made by combining strong coffee, sweet cream, sugar, egg yolks, vanilla, and ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Coffee Parfait

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Make 1 quart of very strong black coffee.

  2. Combine the coffee with 1 gallon of sweet cream.

  3. Stir in 2 pounds of sugar, 25 egg yolks, and 1 ounce of vanilla extract.

  4. Heat the mixture on the stove, stirring until it starts to thicken.

  5. Remove from heat and pour into a packing can.

Freeze and serve

  1. Bury the can in ice and salt, and do not disturb for a few hours.

  2. After a few hours, remove the cover from the can and mix well with a stout stick.

  3. Serve in high stem glasses topped with whipped cream.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Coffee + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,339 recipes

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

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 yolks
Thicken the custard and give the parfait a rich, smooth texture.
Sweet cream
Provides fat and moisture for a smooth, creamy body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the frozen texture soft.
Strong black coffee
Supplies the main coffee flavor.

The step that matters

Heating until it starts to thicken. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but overheating can scramble them into lumps. Stir constantly and remove from heat once the mixture begins to thicken.

“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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