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Drink

Southern Roast Coffee

A roasted coffee beverage made with coffee, butter, sugar, optional egg, and boiled water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Coffee and hazelnut work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 86 recipes. Both carry 2-ethyl-3,5-dimethylpyrazine, which smells roasted, earthy. The science ↓

Southern Roast Coffee

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Roast the coffee

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Add coffee, butter, and sugar to the roaster.

  3. Roast the coffee, stirring often, until it swells.

  4. Remove from the oven before fully roasted and shake for a few minutes.

  5. If using an egg, beat the white and mix it with the coffee when cold.

Store

  1. Store the coffee in a tight box.

Brew

  1. To brew, use 1 heaping tablespoon of coffee per person.

  2. Cover with cold water and heat gradually to boiling.

  3. Add 1 cup of boiling water for each tablespoon of coffee.

  4. For stronger coffee, use 2 tablespoons per person.

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. Coffee + hazelnuttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together86 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-ethyl-3,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, earthy).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Hazelnut + buttertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together559 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Coffee
Provides the beans that roast into the aroma and flavor of the finished brew.
Butter
Adds a small amount of fat that coats the beans and helps them roast evenly.
Granulated sugar
Caramelizes during roasting, adding sweetness and deeper browning to the beans.
Egg
Egg white binds fine grounds so they settle, clearing the brewed coffee.

The step that matters

Remove the coffee from the oven before it is fully roasted. Roasted beans keep darkening from their own residual heat after leaving the oven. Pulling them slightly early and shaking them helps prevent over-darkening, which would make the coffee taste bitter and burnt.

Swap the hazelnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (coffee, butter, sugar, egg):

  1. Cocoafits better
  2. Pecansfits about as well
  3. Almondfits about as well
  4. Hazelnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against coffee, butter, sugar, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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