Name: Coffee Icing
Ingredients: 2 oz. fresh butter; ½ lb. fine sugar; 1 tablespoon clear strong coffee

Why it works: Sugar and coffee are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,344 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Coffee Icing

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

2 oz. fresh butter
½ lb. fine sugar
1 tablespoon clear strong coffee

Directions

In a basin, combine eggs and sugar. Beat over hot water until warm, about 10 minutes.
Remove from heat and continue beating for 5 minutes.
Sift in flour and baking powder, then stir gently.
Pour into a buttered and sugared mold, and bake until done.
Let the cake cool completely before icing.
For the icing, beat the butter and sugar until white and creamy.
Gradually add the cold coffee, a few drops at a time, until it forms a firm, smooth paste.
Transfer the icing to a piping bag and decorate the cake in a Turkish pattern.
Chill the decorated cake before serving.

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.

Sugar + coffeetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,344 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Butter + coffeetop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,442 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).