Name: Coffee with Whipped Cream
Ingredients: 6 cups brewed coffee; 1 cup sweet cream; 2 teaspoons sugar (for cream); sugar (to taste); 1 tablespoon boiling milk

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 with Whipped Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Whip the sweet cream with 2 teaspoons of sugar until light.
In each coffee cup, add sugar to taste and 1 tablespoon of boiling milk.
Pour the brewed coffee over the sugar and milk mixture.
Top each cup with a large spoonful of the frothed 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.

Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Coffee + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,202 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Coffee + creamtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,339 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,344 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together29,399 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sweet cream: Whipped into a light froth that sits on top of the coffee as a rich, soft layer.
Brewed coffee: Forms the main liquid base of the drink and carries its flavour.
Boiling milk: Adds warmth and softness to the drink and helps dissolve the sugar.

“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.