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Dessert

Coffee Cream

A chilled dessert made with gelatine, coffee, sugar, cream, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Coffee Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatine

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold milk for 1 hour.

Make the coffee cream

  1. Add boiling coffee and sugar to the soaked gelatine. Stir until dissolved.

  2. If not completely melted, place over boiling water. Stir until dissolved.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool.

  4. Stir in the cream.

Set and serve

  1. Rinse a mold with cold water.

  2. Strain the mixture into the mold.

  3. Set aside in the ice to harden.

  4. Turn out onto a cut paper.

  5. Serve immediately.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + coffeetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

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

  5. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable cream when chilled.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the set dessert.
Sugar
Sweetens the coffee mixture and balances its bitterness.
Strong coffee
Provides the main flavour of the dish.
Cold milk
Hydrates the gelatine before it is dissolved into the mixture.

The step that matters

Dissolving the gelatine completely. Gelatine must fully melt into the hot coffee mixture before cooling. Any undissolved granules will leave gritty specks and weak spots, so the cream may not set evenly.

“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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