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Dessert

Coffee Ice Cream

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Coffee Ice Cream

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 Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the coffee custard

  1. Brown the coffee berries in the oven until they have an oily appearance.

  2. Heat the milk in a pot and add the browned coffee.

  3. Once scalding hot, remove from heat and let cool with the coffee in the milk.

  4. Strain the mixture and return it to the heat in a custard boiler.

  5. Add the egg yolks and sugar, stirring until smooth but do not let it curdle.

  6. Remove from heat, add the beaten egg whites, and when cool, fold in the whipped cream.

Freeze

  1. Freeze the mixture and mold it.

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. Sugar + creamtop 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. Coffee + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,339 recipes

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

  4. Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

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

  5. Milk + creamtop 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

Mocha coffee berries
Provide the coffee flavor, infused into the milk after browning.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the custard and ice cream are built on.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness through their emulsifying fats and proteins.
Egg whites
Add lightness and airiness to the mixture once beaten in.
Thick sweet cream
Adds fat and creaminess, giving a smooth, rich texture after whipping.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg yolks into the hot milk. Egg yolk proteins set when heated, so if the custard gets too hot or is not stirred constantly it curdles and turns grainy. Keep the heat gentle and stir until it smoothly coats a spoon.

“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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