Skip to main content
Drink

Vienna Coffee

A coffee served with a frothy cream and egg white mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,399 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Vienna Coffee

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Make your coffee as usual.

  2. Heat 1 quart of cream in a pot or in a pitcher placed in a kettle of boiling water. Keep the water boiling.

  3. Beat the egg white until frothy.

  4. Mix the frothy egg white with 3 tablespoons of cold milk.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the cream from heat and stir in the milk and egg mixture briskly for 1 minute.

  2. Serve in coffee cups with the 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. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  2. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  3. 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

Cream
Provides richness and body, giving the topping a smooth, velvety texture.
Egg white
Whipped into foam, it adds lightness and helps the cream hold a frothy texture.
Cold milk
Mixed with the egg white, it helps loosen the foam so it blends smoothly into the warm cream.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg white and milk mixture. Stirring briskly keeps the egg white dispersed and fine rather than letting it clump or cook into strands when it meets the hot cream. Removing the cream from heat first prevents the egg from scrambling.

“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.

You might also like

Vegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesRaspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesBrown Coffee with EggBrown Coffee with Egg175 recipesBlackberry CordialBlackberry Cordial129 recipes