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Home Coffee

A beverage made from roasted cracked wheat and molasses, boiled with water and served with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and sorghum share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Home Coffee

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Roast the wheat

  1. Mix cracked wheat and molasses in a baking dish.

  2. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven until well browned, stirring occasionally.

Brew and serve

  1. In a pot, boil 6 tablespoons of the mixture in 2 quarts of water over low heat for 10 minutes.

  2. Serve with 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. Wheat + sorghumtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together18 recipes

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

  2. Wheat + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together681 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Sorghum + creamtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Cracked wheat
Roasts to a brown, toasty base that gives the brew its body and flavor.
Molasses
Coats the wheat and browns during baking, adding sweetness and a deep, rich aroma.

The step that matters

Bake until well browned. Browning develops the roasted, bitter-sweet flavor that stands in for coffee. Pale wheat yields a weak, grainy-tasting brew, so stir occasionally for even colour.

“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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