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Drink

Vienna Coffee

A coffee beverage made by mixing coffee grounds, eggs, water, cream, and egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Coffee and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,339 recipes. Both carry 2-heptanol, which smells bitter, floral. The science ↓

Vienna Coffee

Ingredients

Directions

Make the coffee

  1. Moisten the coffee grounds with cold water and stir in the beaten egg.

  2. Pour half of the boiling water over the mixture and let it stand for 5 minutes at boiling point.

  3. Add the remaining boiling water and let it stand for 5 minutes or more (not boiling).

Serve

  1. In a separate bowl, combine the cream with the beaten egg white.

  2. Serve by putting the cream mixture in cups and pouring the coffee over it.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Coffee + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,239 recipes

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

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

Coffee
Provides the main flavour and aroma of the drink.
Egg
Helps clarify the brew by binding fine grounds as the egg sets.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow body that softens the coffee.

The step that matters

Keep the second steep below boiling. Once the remaining water is added, the mixture should stay just under boiling. Boiling can over-extract the grounds, making the coffee harsher, and can disturb the egg that is clarifying the brew.

“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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