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Drink

Vienna Coffee

A coffee beverage made with mocha, java, coffee grounds, egg, water, cream, egg white, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Vienna Coffee

Ingredients

Directions

Brew the coffee

  1. Mix Mocha and Java coffee together.

  2. Add 5 tablespoons of coffee to a pot.

  3. Mix 1 egg with the coffee grounds.

  4. Pour in half the boiling water needed.

  5. Let it froth.

  6. Stir down the grounds.

  7. Let it boil for 5 minutes.

  8. Remove from heat.

  9. Let it stand for 5 to 10 minutes to keep hot, but not boiling.

  10. Add the remaining boiling water.

Serve

  1. In cups, combine the beaten egg white with cream and sugar.

  2. Pour the hot coffee over the cream mixture.

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. Cream + sugartop 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).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Coffee
Provides the main coffee flavor and bitterness of the drink.
Egg
Helps settle the grounds so the brewed coffee comes out clearer.
Cream
Adds richness and body, softening the coffee's bitterness.
Egg white
Beaten into the cream, it adds a light, foamy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and balances the coffee's bitterness.

The step that matters

Hold the coffee just below boiling. Once the coffee has boiled and come off the heat, letting it stand just below a boil keeps it hot while avoiding further extraction, which would make it more bitter.

“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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