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Dessert

Coffee Whip

A sweet coffee-based dessert made with flour, sugar, coffee, and egg whites, folded into a thickened mixture and chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Coffee Whip

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Mix flour and sugar in a bowl.

  2. Dissolve the mixture with a little of the coffee.

  3. Once well blended, add the rest of the coffee.

  4. Cook in a double boiler until thick.

Finish and serve

  1. When partly cool, fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  2. Chill and serve with whipped 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.

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. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Flour + coffeetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Flour
Thickens the coffee mixture as it cooks, giving the whip body and a smooth texture.
Egg whites
Beaten stiff and folded in, they add lightness and airy volume to the whip.
Sugar
Sweetens the coffee and helps balance its bitterness.
Clear coffee
Provides the main flavour and liquid base of the dish.

The step that matters

Cook in a double boiler until thick. Gentle, indirect heat lets the flour starch swell and thicken slowly without scorching or lumping. Cooking too hot can burn the base or cause lumps that won't smooth out.

“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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