Skip to main content
Dessert

Coffee Jelly

A gelatin dessert made with strong coffee, sweetened to taste, served with whipped cream and macaroons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Gelatin and cream match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,628 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Coffee Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Dissolve the gelatin in enough water to cover it.

  2. Stir the dissolved gelatin into 1 quart of strong boiling coffee and sweeten to taste.

  3. Strain the mixture through a flannel cloth or jelly bag.

  4. Pour the strained mixture into a wet fancy mold.

  5. Once set, turn out the jelly onto a dish.

Serve

  1. Serve with whipped cream around the base.

  2. Serve with macaroons.

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. Gelatin + creamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Gelatin + sugartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

  5. 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

Gelatin
Sets the coffee liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Strong coffee
Provides the main flavor and liquid base of the jelly.
Sugar
Sweetens the coffee to balance its bitterness.

The step that matters

Strain the mixture through a flannel cloth or jelly bag. Straining removes undissolved gelatin and coffee grounds, so the jelly sets clear and smooth rather than cloudy or gritty.

“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.

You might also like

Coffee Ice CreamCoffee Ice Cream91 recipesCoffee CustardCoffee Custard27 recipesCoffee CakeCoffee Cake21 recipesCoffee Bavarian CreamCoffee Bavarian Cream14 recipes