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Drink

Iced Coffee

A chilled coffee beverage made with brewed coffee, milk, cream, sugar, ice, and coarse salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Iced Coffee

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the coffee

  1. Brew strong coffee and pour it into a jug while hot.

  2. Mix in milk and cover the jug to let it cool.

  3. Once cold, stir in enough thick cream to taste and sweeten more than usual.

Chill over ice

  1. In a deep pan or bucket, place ice and coarse salt.

  2. Stand the covered jug of coffee in the center and pile ice around it.

  3. Leave for at least 3 hours, adding more ice as needed and stirring occasionally.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Strong brewed coffee
Provides the bitter, aromatic base that defines the drink's flavour.
Milk
Adds body and softens the coffee's bitterness.
Thick cream
Adds richness and a smooth, fatty mouthfeel.
Sugar
Sweetens the drink and balances the coffee's bitterness.
Ice
Draws heat out of the coffee so it chills without diluting it quickly.

The step that matters

Stir in the cream and sugar only once the coffee is cold. Cream and sugar added to hot coffee can separate or taste flat once chilled, and sweetness is harder to judge when cold. Waiting lets you season accurately and keeps the cream smooth.

“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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