Skip to main content
Dessert

Coffee Cream

A custard dessert flavored with coffee, thickened with gelatin and egg yolks, topped with whipped cream.

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

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 ↓

Coffee Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg yolks and add them to the milk when nearly boiling.

  2. Stir until the mixture thickens, then add the sugar and cool slightly.

  3. Dissolve the gelatin in 1 tablespoon of water and add it to the custard.

Finish and set

  1. Whip the cream until stiff and stir it into the custard when nearly cold.

  2. Add the coffee essence and pour into a prepared mold.

  3. Let the mold remain on ice in a cold place until firm.

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. Milk + coffeetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

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

  3. Cream + coffeetop 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. Cream + milktop 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set with gentle heat, giving richness.
Gelatine
Sets the cream so it holds its shape when unmolded.
Cream
Adds richness and a light texture when whipped and folded in.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the coffee flavour.

The step that matters

Stir the custard until it thickens. Egg yolks thicken with gentle heat, but if they get too hot they curdle and turn grainy. Stirring steadily and removing the heat once it coats a spoon keeps the custard 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.

More coffee cream recipes

Ice 7Spanish 5Substitute 4 See all 124 →

You might also like

Coffee Ice CreamCoffee Ice Cream91 recipesCoffee CustardCoffee Custard27 recipesCoffee CakeCoffee Cake21 recipesCoffee Bavarian CreamCoffee Bavarian Cream14 recipes