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Dessert

Coffee Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made with roasted coffee berries, cream, milk, arrowroot, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Coffee Ice Cream

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 Cream

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Roast the coffee berries in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 5 minutes.

  2. Boil the cream and milk together.

Make the custard

  1. Combine the hot cream mixture with the roasted coffee berries in a can.

  2. Cover the can until cool.

  3. Strain the mixture.

  4. Add the arrowroot.

  5. Boil the mixture like custard.

  6. Stir in the sugar.

Freeze

  1. Freeze the mixture until solid.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  3. Turkey + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together281 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  5. Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey coffee berries
Provide the main coffee flavor, which roasting deepens and brings out.
Cream
Adds fat for a rich, smooth texture and a creamy mouthfeel.
Milk
Adds liquid and body while keeping the base lighter than pure cream.
Arrowroot
Thickens the custard base when heated, giving it body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and keeps the frozen ice cream softer rather than rock hard.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture like custard. Arrowroot is a starch that thickens only when heated, and it can clump if not stirred. Heating it fully, while stirring, gives a smooth, properly thickened base.

Swap the arrowroot

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, coffee, cream, milk, 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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