Name: Coffee Ice Cream
Ingredients: ½ pound coffee; 3 pints boiling cream; 5 or 6 eggs; 1 quart cream or milk

Why it works: Coffee and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,339 recipes. Both carry 2-heptanol, which smells bitter, floral. The science ↓

Coffee Ice Cream

Ingredients

½ pound coffee
3 pints boiling cream
5 or 6 eggs
1 quart cream or milk

Directions

Make the coffee cream

Roast the coffee until fragrant.
Pour the boiling cream over the roasted coffee and steep for 1 hour.
Strain the coffee-flavored cream.

Make the custard and churn

Beat the eggs.
Mix the beaten eggs with the cream or milk.
Churn the mixture according to French ice cream directions.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Coffee + creamtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,339 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together42,166 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Coffee + eggtop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,239 recipes

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

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

Coffee: Provides the main flavor, which steeps into the hot cream.
Eggs: Add richness and help the custard set into a smooth, creamy base.
Cream: Carries the coffee flavor and gives the ice cream its fat and smooth texture.

“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.