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Drink

Vienna Coffee

Vienna Coffee is a coffee beverage made with mocha and java coffee, coffee grounds, eggs, cream, egg white, sugar, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Vienna Coffee

Ingredients

Directions

Brew the coffee

  1. Mix the Mocha and Java coffee together.

  2. Add 3 tablespoons of coffee grounds for each person plus 2 extra for strength.

  3. Mix 1 egg with the coffee grounds.

  4. Pour in enough boiling water to cover the coffee and let it froth.

  5. Stir down the grounds and let it boil for 5 minutes.

  6. Keep the coffee hot (but not boiling) for 5 to 10 minutes.

  7. Add the remaining boiling water.

Serve

  1. In each cup, combine the beaten egg white, cream, and sugar.

  2. Pour the hot coffee over the mixture in the cups.

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. Coffee + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,339 recipes

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

  3. Coffee + sugartop 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

Egg white
Beaten, it adds foam and lightness to the cream topping.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, cooling layer against the hot coffee.
Egg
Mixed with the grounds, it helps clarify the brewed coffee.

The step that matters

Keep the coffee hot but not boiling. Holding the coffee just below a boil keeps it hot without over-extracting bitter compounds from the grounds, and avoids scorching the flavor.

“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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