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Drink

Cafe Au Lait

A beverage made by mixing brewed coffee with sweetened boiling milk, served with rusks or finger biscuits.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Cafe Au Lait

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

Make the coffee

  1. Brew 4 ounces of strong coffee with ¾ pint of boiling water.

  2. Prepare boiling milk and sweeten it with fine sugar.

Combine and serve

  1. Mix the brewed coffee with the sweetened milk according to each person's preference.

  2. Serve with rusks or finger biscuits.

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

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

  2. Sugar + biscuittop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Coffee + biscuittop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together115 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Milk + biscuittop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,332 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. 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

Strong coffee
Provides the bold, bitter coffee flavour that defines the drink.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the bitterness of the coffee.
Fine sugar
Adds sweetness, balancing the bitterness of the coffee.

“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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