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 Ice Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Make the base
Make filtered coffee using the finely ground coffee and boiling water.
Mix the hot coffee with the cream and sugar.
Freeze
Allow the mixture to cool, then freeze it.
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.
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Coffee + creamtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,339 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
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Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Finely ground coffee
- Provides the coffee flavour and aroma that defines the ice cream.
- Cream
- Adds fat, which makes the frozen ice cream rich and smooth.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the base and keeps the frozen texture softer by lowering the freezing point.
The step that matters
Allow the mixture to cool before freezing. Cooling the base fully before freezing helps it freeze evenly. Ice crystals stay smaller when the mixture is cold before churning or freezing, giving a smoother texture.
“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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