Skip to main content
Dessert

Coffee Jelly

Coffee jelly is a gelatin dessert made with coffee, sugar, and gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Gelatin and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,778 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Coffee Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gelatin in cold water for 2 minutes.

  2. Make strong coffee by pouring 2 cups of boiling water over 3 heaping teaspoons of pulverized coffee; let it stand for 3 minutes without boiling.

Set and serve

  1. Pour 1 cup of boiling water over the softened gelatin and add the strained coffee, sugar, and salt.

  2. Stir well and pour the mixture into a mold.

  3. Once cold and firm, serve with milk poured from the top of a bottle or thin boiled custard.

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. Gelatin + sugartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Gelatin + coffeetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together146 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatin
Sets the coffee liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Strong coffee
Provides the main flavour and dark colour of the jelly.
Sugar
Sweetens the bitter coffee and balances its flavour.

The step that matters

Pour 1 cup of boiling water over the softened gelatin. Gelatin must be fully dissolved in hot liquid before the coffee is added. Undissolved gelatin leaves grainy specks and can prevent the jelly from setting 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.

You might also like

Coffee Ice CreamCoffee Ice Cream91 recipesCoffee CustardCoffee Custard27 recipesCoffee CakeCoffee Cake21 recipesCoffee Bavarian CreamCoffee Bavarian Cream14 recipes