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Drink

Iced Coffee

A chilled beverage made by mixing brewed coffee, heated milk, powdered sugar, and ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and coffee are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,202 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Iced Coffee

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Pour the brewed coffee and heated milk into a small ice cream freezer.

  2. Add the powdered sugar and tightly cover the freezer.

Freeze

  1. Place the freezer in a tub filled with broken ice and rock salt, higher than the coffee level.

  2. Turn the freezer handle sharply in different directions for 5-6 minutes.

  3. Wipe the cover of the freezer to prevent ice from falling in.

Serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a pitcher using a ladle and serve with coffee glasses and extra powdered sugar.

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. Milk + coffeetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Milk
Adds richness and body, softening the icy texture as it chills.
Brewed coffee
Provides the main flavor and liquid base of the drink.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves easily into the cold liquid.

The step that matters

Turn the freezer handle sharply in different directions. Constant movement keeps ice crystals small and the texture smooth. Stopping lets the liquid freeze into large, coarse 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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