Skip to main content
Dessert

Coffee Flummery

A chilled coffee dessert made with gelatin, eggs, sugar, milk, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Coffee Flummery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a double boiler, mix the coffee, milk, ⅔ cup sugar, salt, and gelatin dissolved in a little water.

  2. Reserve ⅓ cup of sugar. While heating, beat this with the yolks of 3 eggs.

Make the custard

  1. Stir the boiling mixture into the egg yolks, return to the boiler, and stir until it begins to thicken.

  2. Remove from heat, fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites and vanilla.

Chill and serve

  1. Pour into a mold dipped in ice water and set aside to chill.

  2. Serve when ice cold with 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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Gelatin + creamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they heat and enrich its texture.
Egg whites
Folded in whipped, they lighten the texture and add airiness.
Gelatin
Sets the liquid so the dessert holds its shape when chilled.
Coffee
Provides the main flavor and aroma of the dessert.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the coffee's bitterness.
Sugar
Sweetens the dessert and balances the coffee's bitterness.

The step that matters

Stir the boiling mixture into the egg yolks. Hot liquid added to yolks can scramble them. Pour gradually while stirring constantly so the yolks warm evenly, then heat gently until the custard just thickens enough to coat a spoon.

“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

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesCoffee Ice CreamCoffee Ice Cream91 recipesCoffee CustardCoffee Custard27 recipesCoffee CakeCoffee Cake21 recipes