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Dessert

Coffee Filling

A coffee-based filling made with coffee, sugar, flour, egg yolks, butter, vanilla, and milk, used between cake layers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Coffee Filling

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Pour boiling water over the ground coffee.

  2. Strain the coffee and pour it back into the cup, filling it up with milk.

  3. Beat the egg yolks, sugar, and flour together until it runs from the spoon.

  4. Scald the mixture in the milk and coffee until thick like cream.

  5. Add the butter and vanilla.

Fill and top the cake

  1. When cold, spread between layers of cake.

  2. Top with boiled frosting made with coffee instead of water.

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. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  4. Coffee + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,391 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Coffee + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they heat and add richness and body.
Flour
Helps thicken the custard so it holds its shape when cooled.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness of the coffee.
Ground coffee
Provides the main coffee flavor and aroma.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich texture in the filling.
Milk
Supplies the liquid base that becomes creamy when scalded.

The step that matters

Scalding the egg yolk mixture. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but too much heat makes them curdle and turn grainy. Heat the mixture gently and only until it is thick like cream.

“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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