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Cafe Parfait

A chilled coffee gelatin dessert layered with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Cafe Parfait

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 ↓

Cafe Parfait

Ingredients

Directions

Make the coffee mixture

  1. Soak ¼ box of gelatin in ½ cup of cold water for 30 minutes.

  2. Pour 1 cup of clear, strong coffee over the soaked gelatin.

  3. Add 1 cup of sugar and stir until dissolved.

  4. Strain the mixture and let it cool.

  5. Whip 1 cup of cream.

  6. Add the whipped cream to the coffee mixture, stirring until it begins to thicken.

  7. Transfer the mixture to a freezer and stir until quite hard.

Assemble and freeze

  1. Whip 1 pint of cream until very stiff, adding ½ cup of powdered sugar and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract.

  2. Pack the whipped cream into a mold.

  3. Layer with the coffee mixture an inch thick on the outside.

  4. Fill the center with the whipped cream.

  5. Cover with the coffee mixture.

  6. Seal the mold with a cover.

  7. Bind the edge with a piece of letter paper.

  8. Dip a piece of muslin in melted butter and cover the joint.

  9. Pack the mold in salt and ice and let it stand for at least two hours.

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.

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.

  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 + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  4. Coffee + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,391 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

Sugar and vanilla 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

Gelatin
Sets the coffee mixture into a firm, sliceable frozen body.
Cream
Whipped air and fat give the parfait a light, smooth, creamy texture.
Coffee
Provides the main flavor and liquid base of the parfait.
Sugar
Sweetens the coffee mixture and softens its icy texture.

The step that matters

Stir until quite hard in the freezer. Stirring as the mixture freezes breaks up ice crystals and keeps the texture smooth; leaving it unstirred produces a coarse, icy result. The whipped cream must be folded in while the base is only partly set so it holds its air.

“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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