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Drink

To Make Milk Coffee

A drink made by boiling coffee and milk, then clarifying with cold water and sweetening.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 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 ↓

To Make Milk Coffee

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil 2 teaspoons of ground coffee in nearly 4 cups of milk for 15 minutes.

  2. Sprinkle a little cold water over the mixture to clear it.

  3. Remove from heat and set aside.

  4. Sweeten with sugar to taste.

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. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and sugar 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 drink its main coffee flavour and aroma as it steeps in the hot milk.
Milk
Adds richness and body and softens the bitterness of the coffee.

The step that matters

Boil the coffee in the milk for 15 minutes. Milk can scorch on the bottom of the pan and boil over, so keep the heat controlled and stir. Simmering steeps the coffee into the milk, while overheating makes the drink taste burnt.

“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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