Skip to main content
Dessert

Parfaits and Spong-adas

A chilled dessert made with eggs, sugar, coffee, whipped cream, and ice and salt for freezing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓

Parfaits and Spong-adas

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a pan over hot water, whisk the egg yolks and sugar until warm and thick.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in the hot coffee, continuing to beat until cold and creamy.

  3. Once cold and light, quickly fold in the whipped cream.

Freeze

  1. Pour the mixture into a mold and freeze for about 3 hours.

  2. If using ice and salt, weigh down the lid to keep it closed properly.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

  3. Sugar + coffeetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

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

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Eggs
Yolks thicken as they warm and whisk, forming the rich custard base.
Caster sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the yolks whisk to a thick, stable foam.
Coffee
Provides the main liquid and coffee flavour, chilled into the custard.
Whipped cream
Adds lightness and a smooth, creamy texture to the frozen dessert.

The step that matters

Warm the yolks gently over hot water. Egg yolks scramble if they get too hot too fast. Gentle, steady heat while whisking thickens them smoothly into a custard that holds air and sets well when frozen.

“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.

You might also like

Coffee Ice CreamCoffee Ice Cream91 recipesCoffee CustardCoffee Custard27 recipesCoffee CakeCoffee Cake21 recipesCoffee Bavarian CreamCoffee Bavarian Cream14 recipes