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Cafe Parfait or Coffee Ice Cream

A custard-based ice cream flavored with coffee.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Cafe Parfait or Coffee Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Scald the milk with the coffee in a saucepan.

  2. Add ½ cup of sugar and the salt to the milk mixture.

  3. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the remaining sugar.

  4. Combine the egg mixture with the milk mixture to make a custard.

Cool and freeze

  1. Add 1 cup of cream and let the mixture stand for 30 minutes to cool.

  2. Strain the mixture through cheesecloth and stir in the remaining cream.

  3. Freeze the mixture until solid.

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. Milk + coffeetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
Cream
Adds fat for a smooth, rich texture that resists ice crystals.
Sugar
Lowers the freezing point and adds sweetness, keeping the ice cream scoopable.
Milk
Provides the liquid base and dairy solids that form the custard.
Coffee
Supplies the main flavour of the ice cream.

The step that matters

Combine the egg mixture with the milk mixture to make a custard. Egg yolks thicken when gently heated but can scramble if the hot milk is added too quickly or the mixture overheats. Adding the hot liquid slowly while whisking keeps the custard smooth.

“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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