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Drink

Burnt Coffee, or Coffee a LA Militaire

A strong coffee sweetened with sugar, topped with brandy and flamed before serving.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Coffee and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,344 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Burnt Coffee, or Coffee a LA Militaire

Ingredients

Directions

Make the coffee

  1. Brew strong and clear coffee.

  2. Sweeten the coffee in the cup with white sugar until almost syrupy.

Flame and serve

  1. Gently pour brandy on top using a spoon.

  2. Ignite the brandy with a lighted paper.

  3. Once the flame diminishes, blow it out and serve hot.

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

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

  2. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  3. Coffee + brandytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together213 recipes

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

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

White sugar
Sweetens the coffee and thickens it slightly toward a syrupy texture.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor and is ignited to create the flamed effect.

The step that matters

Igniting the brandy. Brandy must be poured gently onto the coffee so it floats on top rather than mixing in. Alcohol vapour is what burns, so the flame can only form when the brandy sits on the surface and is lit with care.

“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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