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Dessert

Coffee Cream

A chilled custard made with coffee, eggs, milk, sugar, gelatin, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Gelatin and cream match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,628 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Coffee Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a double boiler, cook the eggs and milk until they coat the back of a spoon, stirring constantly.

  2. Soak the gelatin in the coffee for 10 minutes, then add it to the hot custard to dissolve.

  3. Stir in the sugar and let the mixture cool while whipping the cream.

Finish and chill

  1. Once the custard is nearly cold, fold in the whipped cream thoroughly.

  2. Pour the mixture into a wet mold and chill before serving.

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. Gelatin + creamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Coffee + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

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

  5. Coffee + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,339 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the custard as they set when gently heated, giving the cream its body.
Gelatin
Sets the liquid so the cream holds its shape when chilled and unmolded.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and adds richness and softness.
Whipped cream
Adds fat and air, lightening the texture and making the set cream creamier.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness of the coffee.

The step that matters

Cook the custard gently over the double boiler. Eggs thicken when heated but scramble if they get too hot, so gentle, constant stirring keeps the custard smooth and lets it coat a spoon.

“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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