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Dessert

Coffee Cream

A chilled coffee-flavored gelatin dessert made with cream, coffee, sugar, water, and gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Cream and gelatin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,628 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Coffee Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the coffee base

  1. Soak the gelatin in water until dissolved.

  2. Pour the dissolved gelatin into the hot coffee.

  3. Add the sugar and stir until dissolved.

  4. Cool the mixture and strain it.

Finish and set

  1. Whip the cream and gently fold it into the coffee mixture.

  2. Fill molds with the mixture and set them in a cold place to chill.

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 + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  4. Cream + coffeetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,339 recipes

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

  5. Coffee + sugartop 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, it adds air and richness, giving the set dessert a light, creamy texture.
Gelatin
Forms the gel network that sets the mixture so it holds its shape when chilled.
Sugar
Sweetens the coffee and balances its bitterness.

The step that matters

Fold the whipped cream gently into the coffee mixture. Vigorous stirring knocks out the air trapped in the whipped cream, making the dessert dense instead of light. The mixture should also be cool enough that it does not melt the cream or lose its airy structure.

“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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