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Dessert

Coffee Jelly

A gelatinous dessert made from coffee, sugar, egg yolks, milk, and clarified isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Coffee and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,202 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Coffee Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the coffee infusion

  1. Infuse the ground coffee in boiling water until the coffee settles.

  2. Pour off the clear liquid.

Make the custard base

  1. Boil the sugar in a saucepan to make a rich syrup.

  2. Add the coffee to the syrup and heat gently until the sugar dissolves.

  3. Stir in the egg yolks and boiling milk, then add the sugar.

  4. Place on moderate heat, stirring with a wooden spoon until it simmers.

Set the jelly

  1. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve and let it cool to lukewarm.

  2. Mix in the clarified isinglass until dissolved.

  3. Pour into molds and let cool completely.

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 + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  2. Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

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

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Ground coffee
Gives the jelly its coffee flavor and dark color.
Clarified isinglass
A collagen-based gelling agent that sets the liquid into a firm jelly as it cools.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help thicken the custard base as it heats.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the coffee's bitterness.
Sugar
Sweetens the jelly and balances the bitterness of the coffee.

The step that matters

Simmering the egg yolks and milk. Egg yolks can scramble or scorch if overheated, so stirring gently over moderate heat keeps the custard smooth and evenly thickened.

“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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