Skip to main content
Dessert

Coffee Jelly

A chilled dessert made by setting coffee with gelatin and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Coffee and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,344 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Coffee Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatin

  1. Soak the gelatin in cold water for 2 hours.

  2. Combine the soaked gelatin and sugar in a bowl.

  3. Cover and let sit for 30 minutes.

Make the jelly

  1. Pour in boiling water and stir until dissolved.

  2. Add the coffee and strain the mixture.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into a mold and refrigerate until set.

  2. 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. 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

Gelatin
Sets the liquid into a firm, wobbly jelly as it cools.
Coffee
Provides the main flavour and colour of the jelly.
Sugar
Sweetens the coffee and balances its bitterness.

The step that matters

Dissolving the gelatin fully. Gelatin only sets when it is completely dissolved in hot liquid and then cooled. If granules remain undissolved after pouring in the boiling water, the jelly will be grainy or set unevenly, so stir until no particles are visible before adding the coffee.

“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.

You might also like

Coffee Ice CreamCoffee Ice Cream91 recipesCoffee CustardCoffee Custard27 recipesCoffee CakeCoffee Cake21 recipesCoffee Bavarian CreamCoffee Bavarian Cream14 recipes