Skip to main content
Dessert

Coffee Cream

A chilled coffee-flavored custard made with egg yolks, milk, sugar, gelatin, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Coffee Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg yolks in a bowl.

  2. Boil the milk and pour it over the yolks, stirring quickly.

  3. Return the mixture to the saucepan and cook on low heat until thick, without boiling.

Add the flavouring and cream

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in the coffee essence and water, then add the sugar.

  2. Once cool, stir the gelatine mixture into the custard.

  3. Whip the cream and fold it into the custard when both are completely cool.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a wetted or decorated mold when it is nearly set.

  2. Place the mold in a cool place until fully set.

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

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

  5. Milk + creamtop 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 cook and give it richness.
Gelatine
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when cold.
Cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture when whipped and folded in.
Milk
Forms the base of the custard with the egg yolks.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the mixture.

The step that matters

Cook the custard on low heat without boiling. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, but boiling can curdle them into a grainy texture. Low heat lets the custard thicken smoothly.

“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