Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓
Iced Coffee
Ingredients
Directions
Make the base
Boil the sugar and water together for 5 minutes.
Add the black coffee and double cream to the mixture.
Freeze and serve
Freeze the mixture until solid.
Serve in glasses.
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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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Coffee + creamtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,339 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
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Sugar + coffeetop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,344 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and, once dissolved in water, helps keep the frozen mixture softer.
- Black coffee
- Provides the main coffee flavour and bitterness that balances the sweetness.
- Double cream
- Adds fat, which makes the frozen result rich and smooth rather than icy.
The step that matters
Freeze the mixture until solid. Freezing is slow and unstirred here, so large ice crystals can form and make the texture coarse. Cooks should expect the mixture to need time and should not assume a short freeze is enough.
“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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