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Dessert

Coffee Cream

A coffee-flavored custard made with milk, cream, coffee, sugar, egg yolks, and set with isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar 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

Prepare the infusion

  1. Boil the milk and thick cream together.

  2. Roast the raw coffee in a frying pan until it is a good color.

  3. While hot, add the roasted coffee to the boiled milk and cream, cover, and let it stand for 1 hour.

  4. Strain the mixture through a tammy, squeezing to extract the coffee flavor.

Finish and set

  1. Mix in enough clarified sugar to sweeten the mixture.

  2. Beat the egg yolks and stir them into the cream mixture.

  3. Rub and squeeze the mixture through the tammy again.

  4. Add enough isinglass to set the mixture and pour it into a mold surrounded by ice.

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. Cream + sugartop 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. Coffee + sugartop 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

Thick cream
Adds richness and a smooth, fatty mouthfeel to the set custard.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that carries the coffee flavor and gives body.
Raw coffee
Provides the main coffee flavor, released into the hot dairy during the infusion.
Egg yolks
Enriches and thickens the cream mixture, adding richness and helping it set.
Isinglass
Gelatin-like setting agent that firms the mixture so it holds its shape when chilled.

The step that matters

Adding the isinglass to set the mixture. Isinglass must be added in the right amount and the mixture kept at the correct temperature before molding. Too little leaves it runny, and too much makes it rubbery. It should be poured into the mold while still fluid and then chilled to firm up.

“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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