Skip to main content
Drink

Coffee with Whipped Cream

A hot coffee served with whipped cream and optional sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Coffee with Whipped Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cream

  1. Whip the cream with a little sugar until light.

Assemble the cups

  1. In each cup, add the desired amount of sugar and 1 tablespoon of boiling milk.

  2. Pour the brewed coffee over the sugar and milk mixture.

  3. Top each cup with a large spoonful of frothed cream.

  4. Gently stir each cup before serving.

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 + milktop 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. 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

Sweet cream
Whipped into a light froth that floats on top and adds richness and softness to each cup.
Brewed coffee
Forms the base of the drink, providing the main flavor and liquid volume.
Boiling milk
Dissolves the sugar and warms the cup, adding mild creaminess to the coffee.

The step that matters

Whipping the cream until light. Cream whips best when cold and stops at light peaks if overbeaten, which turns it grainy and prevents it from floating neatly on the coffee.

“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