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Dessert

Coffee Foam

A light foam made from coffee, sugar, gelatin, and beaten egg whites, served with cream and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Coffee and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,344 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Coffee Foam

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Soak the gelatine in ⅓ cup cold water.

  2. When the gelatine has dissolved, add the hot coffee and sugar.

  3. Let the mixture stiffen but not harden.

Finish and serve

  1. Gently fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites, one spoonful at a time.

  2. Mold the mixture and serve with cream and 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. Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a light, firm structure as it cools.
Egg whites
Whipped into air bubbles that give the dish a light, foamy texture.
Coffee
Provides the main flavour and most of the liquid.
Sugar
Sweetens the coffee and balances its bitterness.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Fold the whites in gently, one spoonful at a time, so the air bubbles survive. Adding them all at once or stirring hard deflates the foam. Wait until the gelatine mixture has only stiffened, because a fully set mixture will not blend smoothly with the whites.

“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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