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Dessert

Coffee Cream

A custard-like dessert made with eggs, sugar, coffee, and milk, topped with whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Coffee and milk 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 ↓

Coffee Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs and sugar together.

  2. Add a little cold milk.

  3. Stir in 1 quart of boiling milk and the coffee until it begins to thicken, but do not let it boil.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour into a large glass dish.

  2. Top with the beaten egg whites for frosting.

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. Coffee + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + coffeetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the custard as they gently set with heat, giving it body and richness.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps balance the coffee's bitterness.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the egg yolks thicken into a smooth custard.
Coffee
Adds the main coffee flavor and aroma to the custard.
Egg whites
Whipped into a light, airy layer that forms the frosting on top.

The step that matters

Thicken without boiling. Egg yolks scramble and curdle if overheated, so the custard must thicken gently. Stop heating as soon as it begins to thicken to keep it smooth.

“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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