Skip to main content
Dessert

Coffee Cream

A chilled coffee-based dessert made with cream, sugar, gelatin, and strong coffee.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and gelatin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,628 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Coffee Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the coffee base

  1. Soak the gelatin in the water until dissolved.

  2. Pour the dissolved gelatin into the coffee.

  3. Add the sugar and stir until dissolved.

  4. Cool the mixture, then strain it.

Finish and set

  1. Stir in the cream, which can be whipped or plain.

  2. Fill the molds and refrigerate overnight.

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 + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  4. Cream + coffeetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,339 recipes

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

  5. Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Gelatin
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable cream once chilled.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving a softer, smoother texture to the set dessert.
Sugar
Sweetens the coffee and balances its bitterness.
Strong hot coffee
Provides the main coffee flavour and aroma.

The step that matters

Dissolving the gelatin fully. Gelatin must dissolve completely before it is mixed in, because undissolved granules leave gritty specks and uneven setting. Cooling the mixture before adding cream helps keep the gelatin from setting prematurely.

“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.

More coffee cream recipes

You might also like