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Coffee Sponge

A coffee-flavored gelatin dessert mixed with whipped egg whites and served with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and gelatin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,778 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Coffee Sponge

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Soak the gelatin in cold water for 5 minutes.

  2. Dissolve the gelatin in boiling coffee and add sugar, stirring until dissolved.

  3. Strain the mixture and set it in ice water.

Whip and set

  1. When it begins to thicken, beat the egg whites to a stiff froth.

  2. Whip the jelly into the egg whites, a spoonful at a time, using an egg beater.

  3. Pour the mixture into a mold and place it on ice to harden.

  4. Serve with 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 + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Coffee + gelatintop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together146 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Gelatin + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatin
Sets the coffee liquid into a firm, wobbly jelly structure.
Egg whites
Whipped to a stiff froth, they make the sponge light and airy.
Sugar
Sweetens the coffee jelly and balances its bitterness.
Black coffee
Provides the main flavour and liquid base of the jelly.

The step that matters

Whip the jelly into the egg whites, a spoonful at a time. Adding the jelly gradually while it is only partly thickened lets it blend evenly into the foam. Adding it all at once or when it is too warm or too set can deflate the whites or leave lumps of gelatin.

“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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