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Drink

Vienna Coffee

A coffee beverage made with rich cream, egg white foam, and coffee grounds, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and coffee are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,202 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Vienna Coffee

Ingredients

Directions

Make the coffee

  1. Prepare coffee by filtering or using a coffee pot with boiling water.

  2. Cover and boil for 1 minute, then let it simmer for 5 minutes.

Make the cream topping

  1. In a milk boiler, heat 1 pint of rich cream over boiling water.

  2. Beat the egg white to stiff froth and stir in 3 tablespoons of cold milk.

  3. Once the cream is scalding hot, remove from heat and add the egg white mixture.

  4. Stir briskly for 1-2 minutes and serve with coffee.

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. Milk + coffeetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

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

  3. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and egg 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

Rich cream
Provides fat and richness, giving the topping a smooth, velvety body.
Egg white
Whipped to a foam, it adds lightness and airiness to the cream.
Coffee grounds
Supply the coffee flavour and aroma that the drink is built on.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg white mixture. The cream should be scalding hot but removed from the heat before the whipped egg white is added. Adding it over heat can cook the egg white and cause it to collapse, losing the light foam that gives the topping its 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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