Name: Coffee Ice Cream
Ingredients: 4 cups heavy cream; 1 cup black coffee; 1 cup sugar; 1 egg

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 Ice Cream

Ingredients

4 cups heavy cream
1 cup black coffee
1 cup sugar
1 egg

Directions

Beat the egg in a bowl.
Add sugar, cream, and coffee to the beaten egg.
Mix well and freeze until firm.

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.

Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Cream + coffeetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,339 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,344 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together42,166 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Heavy cream: Adds fat, which gives the ice cream a rich, smooth texture.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice cream softer and scoopable.
Egg: Its proteins and yolk emulsify the mixture, adding richness and body.
Black coffee: Provides the main coffee flavor and aroma.

“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.