Name: Coffee Milk
Ingredients: 1 dessertspoon (2 teaspoons) of coffee; 1 pint (4 cups) of milk; a little isinglass

Why it works: Coffee and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,202 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Coffee Milk

Ingredients

1 dessertspoon (2 teaspoons) of coffee
1 pint (4 cups) of milk
a little isinglass

Directions

Boil 2 teaspoons of coffee in 4 cups of milk for 15 minutes.
Add a little isinglass and clear the mixture.
Boil for a few more minutes.
Set aside to let it develop flavor.

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.

Coffee + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,202 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Coffee: Provides the coffee flavor that the milk takes on during boiling.
Milk: Forms the liquid base and gives the drink its creamy body.
Isinglass: Acts as a fining agent that binds cloudy particles so the liquid clears.

“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.