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 ↓
CoflPee Ice Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Make the custard
In a saucepan, combine milk, egg yolks, sugar, and coffee.
Stir well with an egg beater.
Heat mixture until it begins to thicken, but do not boil.
Strain the mixture and let it cool.
Freeze
Freeze the cooled mixture as you would vanilla ice cream.
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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Milk + coffeetop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,202 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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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 + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 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
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the custard as they heat and add richness and smoothness to the ice cream.
- Milk
- Forms the creamy base that the custard thickens and freezes into.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the base and lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice cream softer.
- Strong black coffee
- Provides the coffee flavour that defines the dish.
The step that matters
Heat until it begins to thicken, but do not boil. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, but boiling can curdle them and leave a grainy texture. Stop heating once the custard coats a spoon.
“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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