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Dessert

Coffee Cream

A gelatin-based dessert made with coffee, sugar, and cold cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the coffee gelatine

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water for 30 minutes.

  2. Place the soaked gelatine over boiling water.

  3. Add the strong coffee and sugar to the gelatine.

  4. Stir until the gelatine is fully dissolved, then remove from heat.

Set in a mould

  1. Stir in the cold cream and strain into a wet mould.

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 + creamtop 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).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable structure as it cools.
Cold cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the set dessert.
Sugar
Sweetens the coffee mixture and balances its bitterness.

The step that matters

Stir until the gelatine is fully dissolved, then remove from heat. Undissolved gelatine leaves grainy specks and weak setting. Gentle heat dissolves it fully without boiling, which can weaken its gelling power.

“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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