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Dessert

Coffee Cream

A gelatinous coffee dessert made from calf's foot gelatin, coffee, heavy cream, and sugar.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Boil the calf's foot in water until it reduces to 1 pint of jelly, clear of sediment and fat.

  2. Make a cup of strong clear coffee.

Combine and set

  1. Pour the coffee into the jelly and add the heavy cream.

  2. Sweeten with Lisbon sugar and bring to a boil.

  3. The mixture should jelly but not be stiff.

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

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

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

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

  3. 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

Calf's foot
Its natural gelatin provides the jelly that sets the dish.
Heavy cream
Adds fat and richness, softening the coffee flavour and giving a smooth texture.
Lisbon sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the bitterness of the coffee.

The step that matters

Judging the set. Gelatin sets as it cools, so the mixture must be left to firm only until it jiggles. Overcooking or over-reducing can leave it stiff and rubbery, while too little gelatin will not set at all.

“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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