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Dessert

Coffee Mousse

A chilled dessert made with gelatin, coffee, sugar, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓

Coffee Mousse

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in a little milk.

  2. Mix it with the strong coffee and sweeten to taste with granulated sugar.

  3. Strain the mixture and set aside to cool.

Whip and set

  1. When it begins to stiffen, beat it with an egg beater until frothy.

  2. Fold in the whipped cream thoroughly.

  3. Fill a fancy shaped mould and set it on ice until hard.

  4. Invert on a platter and serve.

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. Sugar + creamtop 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).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the coffee liquid into a firm, sliceable structure as it chills.
Strong coffee
Provides the main coffee flavour and liquid base of the mousse.
Whipped cream
Adds air-filled richness and a light, creamy texture to the set mousse.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped cream thoroughly. Gelatine begins setting as it cools, so the cream must be folded in while the mixture is still barely stiff. Under-folding leaves streaks of unmixed cream, while over-mixing knocks out the air that gives the mousse its lightness.

“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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