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To Roast Coffee

A method for roasting coffee berries with butter, sugar, and optional chicory, then grinding and brewing with boiling water and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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To Roast Coffee

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

To Roast Coffee

Ingredients

Directions

Roast

  1. In an Irish mop roaster, add 3 pounds of coffee berries, 1 tablespoon of fresh butter, and 2 teaspoons of powdered sugar.

  2. Roast the coffee berries until aromatic.

Brew and serve

  1. For excellent coffee, take 4 tablespoons of roasted coffee berries and warm them in the oven.

  2. Grind the warmed coffee and place it in a coffee pot with a piece of tin over the middle strainer.

  3. Pour in 3 teacupfuls of boiling water and fill the breakfast cup with boiling milk.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Coffee + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

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

  3. Coffee + chicorytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

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

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

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Coffee berries
Provide the coffee flavour that develops during roasting.
Fresh butter
Adds fat that carries aroma and helps coat the beans as they roast.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the beans brown during roasting.

The step that matters

Roast the coffee berries until aromatic. Roasting drives the chemical reactions that create coffee's flavour and colour. Stopping too early leaves the coffee flat, while over-roasting makes it bitter and burnt, so the cook should watch the beans closely.

“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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