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Dessert

Coffee Puff

A frozen cream dessert made with coffee, powdered sugar, and ice.

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 Puff

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Whip the cream until nearly done.

  2. Slowly add the powdered sugar and then the cold coffee.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a pail or mold.

Freeze

  1. Pack the pail in ice and salt, using equal parts salt and ice.

  2. Let it stand for three hours.

Serve

  1. Before serving, dip the pail in warm water for a second to loosen it.

  2. Slip the coffee puff from the mold.

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. Cream + coffeetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,339 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + coffeetop 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

Cream
Whipped to trap air, giving the frozen dessert its light, airy texture.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the mixture and dissolves easily into the cream without making it grainy.
Cold coffee
Adds coffee flavor and liquid to the cream while keeping its chill.
Ice and salt
Salt lowers the ice's temperature so the mixture freezes without stirring.

The step that matters

Slowly add the powdered sugar and then the cold coffee. Adding liquid too quickly to whipped cream can deflate it and make it dense. Adding the coffee gradually keeps the air in the cream intact.

“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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