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Coffee Cream

A sweetened coffee beverage thickened with egg yolks and whites, served chilled with sifted sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Coffee Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the coffee cream

  1. Make 1 cup of strong, clear coffee.

  2. Add ½ pint of boiling cream and beat well together.

  3. Sweeten with 2 tablespoons of sugar.

  4. When cool, add a small pinch of salt, the yolks of 6 eggs, and the whites of 2 eggs.

  5. Stir the mixture over low heat for a few minutes to thicken.

Serve

  1. Pour into glasses and serve with a little sifted sugar on top.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Coffee + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,339 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

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

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

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

  5. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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 cream as they set gently, giving a rich, smooth body.
Egg whites
Add lightness and help the mixture set with a softer, airier texture.
Cream
Provides fat and richness, giving the dessert a smooth, velvety mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the bitterness of the strong coffee.

The step that matters

Stir over low heat to thicken. Egg yolks begin to set around 70°C and can scramble if overheated, leaving lumps. Gentle, constant stirring over low heat thickens the custard evenly while keeping it smooth.

“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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