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 Ice Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Steep the coffee in 1 pint of cream just below boiling.
Strain through a thin muslin, squeezing hard to extract all liquid.
Add the sugar and stir until dissolved.
Once cold, add the remaining pint of cream and freeze.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Coffee + creamtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,339 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
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Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Coffee
- Gives the ice cream its flavor as it steeps in the hot cream.
- Cream
- Provides fat that makes the ice cream rich and smooth in texture.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and softens the texture so the ice cream stays scoopable when frozen.
The step that matters
Straining through muslin. Squeezing hard extracts the flavorful liquid from the coffee grounds. Insufficient pressure leaves flavor behind, while overly fine straining can let grounds through and make the texture gritty.
“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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