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Dessert

Coffee Jelly

A chilled dessert made by setting coffee with gelatin and serving with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gelatin in enough water to cover for 1 hour.

  2. Heat the coffee and sweeten it to taste.

Make and set

  1. Add the dissolved gelatin to the hot coffee and stir well.

  2. Strain the mixture into a mold rinsed in cold water.

  3. Set the mold on ice or in a cool place until cold.

Serve

  1. Serve with whipped 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 + 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 coffee into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Strong coffee
Provides the main flavor and the liquid base of the jelly.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the bitterness of the strong coffee.

The step that matters

Add the dissolved gelatin to the hot coffee and stir well. Gelatin must be fully dissolved and evenly mixed into the coffee. Undissolved granules or unmixed pockets leave a grainy texture and weak, uneven setting when the jelly cools.

“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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