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Dessert

Mousse Parfait Au Cafe

A chilled coffee mousse made with egg yolks, sugar, coffee, and whipped cream, set in molds and cooled in ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Mousse Parfait Au Cafe

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mousse base

  1. Whisk the egg yolks and caster sugar until creamy.

  2. Continue whisking over hot water until warm.

  3. Place the mixture on ice, whisking continuously until cold.

Finish and freeze

  1. Fold in the whipped cream.

  2. Pour the mixture into prepared molds, cover with lids, and set in crushed ice and salt for 3 to 4 hours.

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. Sugar + coffeetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

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

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

Egg yolks
Thicken the base and add richness as they are whisked and gently warmed.
Whipped cream
Adds air and fat, giving the parfait a light, smooth texture.
Coffee
Provides the main flavour of the mousse.

The step that matters

Whisking over hot water. Egg yolks thicken as they warm, but if they get too hot they scramble. Warming gently while whisking keeps the base smooth and creamy.

“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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