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 ↓
Coffee, to Make
Ingredients
Directions
Make the coffee
Put a sufficient quantity of ground coffee into a pot.
Pour boiling water over it.
Stir several times.
Place the pot on the fire.
Once it boils, pour out a cupful of coffee.
Return the cupful to the pot.
Repeat this step.
Set the coffee pot by the side of the fire.
Gently pour a cup of cold water over it.
Alternative method
For an alternative method, beat an egg and mix it with the ground coffee to form a paste.
Put the paste into the coffee pot.
Fill the pot with cold water.
Let it simmer gently for an hour without stirring or boiling.
Settle and serve
Leave it to settle for a few minutes.
Serve hot.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Coffee + creamtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,339 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
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Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,344 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Ground coffee
- Provides the coffee flavour and aroma that the water extracts.
- Egg
- In the alternative method, binds the grounds into a paste and helps clarify the liquid.
The step that matters
Return the cupful to the pot after it boils. Boiling the grounds and then pouring off and returning a cupful lets the coffee mix and infuse. Overboiling or stirring at the wrong time can make the brew bitter or cloudy, so the heat should be managed with care.
“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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