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Dessert

Frozen Coffee Custard

A chilled custard made with milk, cream, eggs, sugar, and strong coffee.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Frozen Coffee Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler until scalded.

  2. Beat the eggs and sugar until very light.

  3. Add the egg mixture to the hot milk and cook for a moment.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the cream and coffee.

Freeze

  1. Let the custard cool, then freeze.

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. Cream + coffeetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,339 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + coffeetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

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

  5. Cream + milktop 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

Eggs
Thicken the custard as they cook and give it a rich, set texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps it turn light when beaten with the eggs.
Cream
Adds fat for a smooth, rich texture that softens the frozen result.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that the eggs set into.
Strong coffee
Provides the coffee flavour and aroma of the finished dessert.

The step that matters

Add the egg mixture to the hot milk and cook for a moment. Adding eggs to hot milk gently, while stirring, avoids scrambling. Cooking briefly thickens the custard so it sets smoothly rather than staying thin and grainy after freezing.

“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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