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Dessert

Coffee Mousse

A chilled dessert made with eggs, cream, sugar, coffee, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 ↓

Coffee Mousse

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mousse base

  1. Beat the egg yolks with the powdered sugar.

  2. Pour in the hot coffee and mix thoroughly.

  3. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  4. Whip the cream until stiff.

  5. Once the coffee mixture is cold, combine all ingredients.

Freeze

  1. Pour into a cold mold and freeze for 5 to 6 hours, surrounded by ice and coarse salt.

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

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

  2. Cream + coffeetop 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).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks thicken and enrich the base, while whipped whites add lightness and airy structure.
Cream
Whipping traps air in the fat structure, giving the mousse its smooth, light texture.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the base and dissolves easily into the yolks for a smooth mixture.
Strong hot coffee
Provides the main coffee flavour and liquid to the base.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks. Under-beaten whites collapse and deflate the mousse, while over-beaten whites turn grainy and dry. Stiff peaks hold air that gives lightness.

“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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