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Dessert

Coffee Cream

A chilled coffee‑flavored custard made with milk, cream, vanilla, egg yolks, sugar, and strong coffee.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla 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 Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk and cream with vanilla for 1 minute.

  2. Beat the egg yolks with sugar until well combined.

  3. Pour the hot milk mixture over the egg yolks and stir.

  4. Return to the stove and cook without boiling for 5 minutes.

  5. Strain the coffee into the cream mixture.

Chill

  1. Transfer the mixture to a bowl.

  2. Refrigerate until thoroughly cold.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

  2. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Vanilla + coffeetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,391 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Milk + coffeetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

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

Vanilla and sugar 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set gently with heat, giving it a rich, smooth body.
Cream
Adds fat for a rich mouthfeel and a smooth, velvety texture.
Milk
Provides liquid that dilutes the richness and helps form the custard base.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps balance the coffee flavour.
Strong coffee
Supplies the main coffee flavour and aroma to the custard.

The step that matters

Cook without boiling. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but if the mixture boils they can scramble and curdle, leaving a grainy texture. Cook gently and keep it below boiling.

“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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