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Dessert

Cafe Parfait

A chilled dessert made by freezing whipped cream with sugar and strong coffee.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Cafe Parfait

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 ↓

Cafe Parfait

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chill the coffee in ice until cold.

  2. Whip the cream until stiff.

Make the mixture

  1. Add sugar and coffee to the whipped cream and beat until stiff.

Freeze

  1. Transfer the mixture to a mold and cover with thick paper.

  2. Pack the mold in ice and salt as if freezing cream.

  3. Freeze for about 3 hours, adding more ice and salt as needed.

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.

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

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + coffeetop 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

Cream
Whipped to stiff foam, it gives the parfait its light, airy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the parfait and lowers the freezing point, keeping it softer when frozen.
Strong coffee
Provides the coffee flavour and adds a little liquid to the mixture.

The step that matters

Beating in the coffee and sugar. Cream whips best when cold and stiff. Adding cold coffee and sugar after whipping must be done gently and fully so the foam holds and the mixture freezes evenly without collapsing.

“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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