Why it works: Coffee and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,202 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓
Cafe Au Lait
Ingredients
Directions
Put 4 ounces of coffee into a pot and pour ¾ pint of boiling water over it. Make sure the coffee is very strong.
In a separate container, combine ½ pint of boiling milk with ¼ pint of the brewed coffee, or less for a weaker drink.
Sweeten with lump sugar to taste.
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.
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Coffee + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,202 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,344 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
- Coffee
- Provides the strong, bitter coffee flavour that defines the drink.
- Milk
- Adds richness and softens the bitterness of the coffee.
The step that matters
Make the coffee very strong. The brewed coffee is diluted with hot milk, so a weak brew will taste flat. Strength must be set at the start, since it cannot be fixed later.
“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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