Skip to main content
Dessert

Coffee Obbam

A chilled coffee custard dessert made with gelatin, custard, very strong coffee, sugar, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Gelatin and cream match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,628 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Coffee Obbam

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. Dissolve the gelatin and sugar in the very strong coffee.

  2. Add the custard and strain the mixture.

Finish and set

  1. Whip the cream and fold it into the custard mixture.

  2. Let it cool, then pour into a mold.

  3. Place the mold on ice to harden.

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. Gelatin + creamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Gelatin + sugartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Coffee + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,339 recipes

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

  5. 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

Gelatin
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable custard that holds its shape when chilled.
Cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture when whipped and folded in.
Custard
Provides the rich, creamy body that forms the bulk of the dessert.
Very strong coffee
Supplies the main coffee flavour and bitterness that balances the sweetness.
Sugar
Sweetens the dessert and balances the bitterness of the coffee.

The step that matters

Fold the whipped cream into the custard before it sets. Whipped cream is made of trapped air bubbles that collapse easily. If the custard mixture is too warm or too runny, the cream deflates and the texture turns heavy. Folding gently keeps the air in and gives a lighter result.

“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.

More coffee custard recipes

Cream 3 See all 52 →

You might also like

Coffee Ice CreamCoffee Ice Cream91 recipesCoffee CakeCoffee Cake21 recipesCoffee Bavarian CreamCoffee Bavarian Cream14 recipesCoffee PuddingCoffee Pudding10 recipes