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Coffee Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made with cream, sugar, coffee, arrowroot, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Coffee Ice Cream

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 ↓

Coffee Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Scald the cream in a saucepan and add baking soda.

  2. Stir in the sugar until it melts.

  3. Add the strong black coffee and mix well.

  4. Dissolve the arrowroot in a little milk and stir it into the mixture.

  5. Boil the mixture for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

Finish and freeze

  1. Let the mixture cool, then fold in the whipped cream.

  2. Freeze until solid.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pure cream
Provides fat that makes the ice cream rich and smooth.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and lowers the freezing point so the ice cream stays scoopable.
Arrowroot
Thickens the base so it holds body and resists ice crystals.
Whipped cream
Adds air and lightness to the cooled base.
Strong black coffee
Supplies the main coffee flavour.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Arrowroot thickens only when heated to a boil, and constant stirring prevents scorching on the bottom of the pan and keeps the starch evenly dispersed for a smooth, uniform texture.

Swap the arrowroot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, sugar, coffee, milk):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Sweet potatofits about as well
  4. Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, coffee, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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