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Dessert

Coffee Jelly

A chilled dessert made by setting coffee with gelatin and sugar, served with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gelatin in cold water until dissolved.

Make the coffee mixture

  1. Add hot coffee and sugar, then stir until combined.

  2. Strain the mixture into a mold.

Set and serve

  1. Set the mold in ice or a cool place to harden.

  2. Serve with cream.

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
Provides the structure that makes the coffee set into a firm jelly.
Hot coffee
Supplies the liquid and the main coffee flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the bitterness of the coffee.

The step that matters

Set the mold in ice or a cool place to harden.. Gelatine only forms a firm gel once it cools and chills. If the mold stays warm, the jelly stays soft and may not hold its shape when unmolded or served.

“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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