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Dessert

Coffee Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made with roasted coffee, milk, egg yolks, sugar, whipped cream, and beaten egg whites.

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

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 ↓

Coffee Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Roast and infuse

  1. Preheat the oven and roast the coffee berries until browned and oily.

  2. In a pot, heat the milk and add the browned coffee; scald and then cool.

  3. Strain the coffee from the milk and return the milk to the heat.

Make the custard

  1. Whisk in the egg yolks and sugar, stirring until smooth but do not let it curdle.

  2. Remove from heat, fold in the beaten egg whites, and then add the whipped cream.

Freeze

  1. Freeze the mixture and mold 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.

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

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

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

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

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Mocha coffee berries
Provide the main coffee flavor and aroma once roasted and steeped into the milk.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that carries the coffee flavor and sets into the custard.
Egg yolks
Thicken the warm base into a smooth custard and add richness.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and softens the texture of the frozen dessert.
Thick sweet cream
Adds fat and richness, making the frozen ice cream smooth and creamy.

The step that matters

Keeping the custard from curdling. Egg yolk proteins thicken when heated, but if the mixture gets too hot they tighten and clump into curds. Keep the heat moderate and stir constantly while the yolks are added, so the base stays smooth.

“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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