Name: Cafe Au Lait
Ingredients: 6 tablespoons strong coffee; 1 breakfast cup of hot milk; optional: cream

Why it works: Coffee and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,202 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Cafe Au Lait

Ingredients

6 tablespoons strong coffee
1 breakfast cup of hot milk
optional: cream

Directions

Brew 6 tablespoons of strong coffee.
Heat 1 breakfast cup of milk until hot.
Combine the hot milk with the brewed coffee.
If desired, add a little cream to enhance the flavor.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Coffee + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,202 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Coffee + creamtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,339 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together29,399 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Strong coffee: Provides the bold, bitter base flavor that the milk softens.
Hot milk: Adds creaminess and mellows the coffee's bitterness, giving a smoother drink.

“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.