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 ↓
Soda Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Make the base
Mix the water, coffee sugar, tartaric acid, beaten egg whites, and oil of wintergreen in a jug.
Cork the jug and store it.
Serve
When ready to serve, pour a little into a tumbler and add a pinch of soda for foam.
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.
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Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,344 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Coffee + eggtop 29% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,239 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Coffee sugar
- Provides sweetness and body to the drink.
- Tartaric acid
- Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and reacts with soda to foam.
- Egg whites
- Whipped to a stiff froth, they add lightness and help hold foam in the drink.
The step that matters
Adding the soda at serving. The soda must be added only when serving, because it reacts with the tartaric acid to release carbon dioxide. Adding it early would let the fizz escape before the drink is poured.
“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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