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To Boast Coffee

Roasted coffee beans flavored with butter and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Coffee and beans work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 289 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

To Boast Coffee

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Add the butter and sugar to the coffee beans before roasting.

  2. Roast the coffee beans in the usual manner.

  3. Ensure the butter is of the very best quality.

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 + beanstop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together289 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

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

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Beans + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,799 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Coffee + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Coffee beans
Main ingredient that develops its roasted flavor and aroma during roasting.
Butter
Adds fat that coats the beans and gives a richer, rounder flavor.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and browns during roasting, deepening the color and flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and sugar before roasting. Sugar caramelizes and can scorch, and butter can burn, if the beans roast too long or too hot. Coating the beans evenly helps the sugar and fat brown rather than char.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (coffee, butter, sugar):

  1. Cocoafits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against coffee, butter, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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