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Coffee Sauce

A sauce made from roasted coffee berries, arrowroot, brandy, sugar, and boiling water.

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

Coffee Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the coffee

  1. Roast the coffee berries in a pan over high heat until well browned.

  2. Pound the roasted coffee berries in a mortar.

  3. Pour the boiling water over the prepared coffee and let it stand for a few minutes.

  4. Strain the mixture into a saucepan.

Thicken and finish

  1. Blend the arrowroot smoothly with a little cold water, then add to the saucepan.

  2. Stir over low heat until thickened.

  3. Add brandy and sugar to taste.

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. Arrowroot + brandytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together141 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Coffee + arrowroottop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  4. Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  5. Arrowroot + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,073 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Brandy and sugar 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

Coffee berries
Provide the main coffee flavor, deepened by roasting until well browned.
Arrowroot or cornstarch
Thickens the liquid into a smooth sauce when heated.
Brandy
Adds aroma and a warm, sharp flavor to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Blend the arrowroot smoothly with cold water. Starch clumps if added dry or to hot liquid. Mixing it into cold water first lets the granules disperse evenly, so the sauce thickens smoothly when heated.

Swap the arrowroot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (coffee, brandy, sugar):

  1. Sweet potatofits about as well
  2. Arrowrootthe original
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Beetrootfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against coffee, brandy, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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