Name: Iced Coffee Cream
Ingredients: ¼ pound freshly roasted coffee beans; 1 quart boiling cream; 8 egg yolks; 10 ounces powdered sugar

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 ↓

Iced Coffee Cream

Ingredients

¼ pound freshly roasted coffee beans
1 quart boiling cream
8 egg yolks
10 ounces powdered sugar

Directions

Put the coffee beans into the boiling cream and cover. Let it infuse for 1 hour.
In a saucepan, mix the egg yolks with the powdered sugar using a wooden spoon.
Add the coffee cream to the egg mixture and stir over low heat until it thickens and coats the spoon, without boiling.
Strain the mixture and freeze as directed in the previous recipe.

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.

Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Coffee + beanstop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together289 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Coffee + creamtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,339 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,344 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).