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Dessert

Coffee Spanish Cream

A chilled coffee custard made with gelatin, eggs, coffee, milk, sugar, vanilla, and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Coffee Spanish Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream

  1. Soak the gelatine in ½ cup cold coffee for 5 minutes.

  2. Boil 1 cup of coffee and milk together.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolks and cook for 3 minutes.

  4. Stir in the sugar, dissolved gelatine, and salt.

  5. Once cool, fold in the stiffly whipped egg whites and vanilla.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into a mold and chill on ice.

  2. 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. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Coffee + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,391 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Coffee + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid cream into a firm, sliceable structure as it chills.
Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the custard base, and whipped whites lighten the texture.
Coffee
Provides the main flavour and liquid for the cream.
Milk
Adds richness and softness to the custard base.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and balances the bitterness of the coffee.

The step that matters

Folding in the stiffly whipped egg whites. Whites must be cool and fully stiff but folded gently; overmixing deflates the foam, and a warm base melts the air out, leaving a dense, less airy set cream.

“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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