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 ↓
Dinner Coffee
Ingredients
Directions
Make the coffee
Mix the Mocha coffee, egg, and cold water together.
Boil the mixture thoroughly.
Serve
Serve without milk, adding loaf sugar or burnt brandy in small cups if desired.
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.
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Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,344 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,340 recipes
Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).
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Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together11,939 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Coffee + brandytop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Mocha coffee
- Provides the main coffee flavour and aroma of the drink.
- Egg
- Clarifies the coffee as it cooks, helping settle grounds for a clearer cup.
The step that matters
Boil the mixture thoroughly. Boiling the egg, coffee and water together is what clarifies the liquid, as the egg proteins coagulate and trap the grounds. Stopping short leaves the coffee cloudy and gritty.
“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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