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 Ice
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the base
Scald the milk and cream together.
Sweeten with sugar or syrup.
Freeze
Pour half of the mixture into a freezing pot and keep the rest in ice.
When the mixture in the freezing pot is lightly frozen, mix it with the remaining portion and stir together.
Serve
Serve the coffee ice with a snowy appearance.
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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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Milk + coffeetop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,202 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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Cream + coffeetop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,339 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
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Sugar + coffeetop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,344 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Milk
- Supplies liquid and milk solids, giving a softer body than water alone would.
- Cream
- Adds fat, which makes the frozen result smooth and rich.
- Sugar or syrup
- Sweetens the mixture and lowers its freezing point, keeping the ice softer.
- Prepared coffee
- Provides the main coffee flavour of the dish.
The step that matters
Partial freezing before mixing. The mixture must be only lightly frozen before it is stirred with the reserved liquid. If it is frozen solid, the two portions will not blend. If it is still fully liquid, the result will not turn snowy and will freeze into a dense block of ice.
“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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