Why it works: Coffee and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,339 recipes. Both carry 2-heptanol, which smells bitter, floral. The science ↓
Coffee
Ingredients
Directions
Brew
Boil nearly 8 cups of water.
Add ground Mocha coffee to taste and boil for 1 minute.
Remove from heat and add 1 cup of cold water to settle the grounds.
Let it sit for 5 minutes until clear.
Make the egg coffee
For a richer flavor, beat 1-2 eggs and mix with coffee to form a ball.
Fill the pot with cold water, add the coffee ball, and simmer gently for 30 minutes without boiling.
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 + creamtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,339 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
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Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together42,166 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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Coffee + eggtop 29% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,239 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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
- Ground mocha coffee
- Provides the main coffee flavor, aroma and bitterness of the drink.
- Eggs
- Bind the coffee grounds into a ball and help clarify the liquid as it cooks.
The step that matters
Simmer gently without boiling. Boiling churns the egg-and-coffee ball and stirs the grounds back into the liquid, making the coffee cloudy and harsher. Gentle heat lets the egg proteins trap the fine grounds and settle them out.
“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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