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Drink

Iced Coffee

Iced coffee made with strong brewed coffee, sugar, orange syrup, and half-whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Iced Coffee

Ingredients

Directions

Make the coffee

  1. Boil the coffee and sugar together for 10 minutes.

  2. Allow the mixture to cool.

Assemble

  1. Pour into tall glasses.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon of orange syrup and 1 tablespoon of half-whipped cream to each glass.

Make the orange syrup

  1. To make the orange syrup, combine cut oranges with sugar and let it stand for several hours, then strain off the juice.

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 + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Syrup + creamtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Coffee + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together326 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (buttery, creamy).

  5. Coffee + syruptop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together318 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Coffee
Forms the bitter, robust base flavour of the drink.
Sugar
Sweetens the coffee and dissolves fully while it is boiled.
Orange syrup
Adds sweetness and bright citrus aroma to the coffee.
Half-whipped cream
Adds richness and a soft, airy texture to each glass.

The step that matters

Allow the mixture to cool. Hot coffee melts the half-whipped cream and thins it into the drink, so the coffee should cool before the cream is added.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (coffee, sugar, syrup, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against coffee, sugar, syrup, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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