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Drink

Cafe Au Lait

A beverage of strong coffee mixed with hot milk, optionally with cream.

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

Why it works: Coffee and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,202 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Cafe Au Lait

Ingredients

Directions

Make the coffee

  1. Make strong, clear coffee.

  2. If not filtered, pour off the grounds.

Combine and serve

  1. Add an equal quantity of hot milk, scalded but not boiled.

  2. Serve very hot.

  3. Optionally, replace part of the milk with one-third the quantity of cream.

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. Coffee + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

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

  3. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Coffee
Provides the strong, bitter base flavor that the milk softens.
Hot milk
Adds richness and mellows the coffee's bitterness with its milk fat and milk sugars.
Cream
Adds extra richness and body when it replaces part of the milk.

The step that matters

Scald the milk without boiling it. Milk heated to a full boil can form a skin and develop a cooked, off flavor that clashes with the coffee. Heating it just until steaming hot keeps its texture smooth and its flavor fresh.

“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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