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Dessert

Coffee Custard

A custard made by combining coffee, water, cream, eggs, and sugar, then baking or setting until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Coffee Custard

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 Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the coffee infusion

  1. Mix the egg with the fresh ground coffee in a bowl.

  2. Pour the boiling water over the mixture and boil for 5 minutes.

  3. Add the cold water and let it stand for 10 minutes.

  4. Pour the mixture off clear into a saucepan and add the cream; bring to a boil.

Make the custard

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the yolks and sugar until very light.

  2. Pour the boiling coffee mixture over the yolk mixture, stirring well.

  3. Set the bowl in a pot of boiling water and stir until it thickens.

  4. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  5. Pour the custard into cups and serve cold.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,339 recipes

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

  3. Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

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

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard and whites add lightness when folded in.
Cream
Adds fat for a rich, smooth texture and mellow body.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the yolks beat to a light, stable foam.
Fresh ground coffee
Provides the coffee flavor infused into the liquid.

The step that matters

Stirring the coffee into the yolks and cooking until thickened. Pouring hot liquid onto yolks must be done gradually while stirring, or the yolks scramble. Gentle heating in the water bath then thickens the custard through egg protein setting without curdling.

“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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