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Dessert

Coffee Cream

A chilled dessert made with gelatin, coffee, sugar, and cold cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Sugar and cream 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

Prepare the gelatine

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water for 30 minutes.

  2. Place the soaked gelatine over boiling water.

Make the cream

  1. Add the coffee and sugar to the gelatine and stir until dissolved.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in the cold cream.

  3. Strain the mixture into a wet mould.

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 + creamtop 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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, wobbly structure as it cools.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the set dessert.
Sugar
Sweetens the coffee and balances its bitterness.
Strong coffee
Provides the main coffee flavour of the dish.

The step that matters

Soak the gelatine in cold water for 30 minutes. Gelatine must hydrate fully in cold water before heating so it dissolves evenly and sets smoothly. Dry or unhydrated granules left in the mixture can leave lumps or a grainy texture.

“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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