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Dessert

Coffee Jelly

A gelatin dessert made from coffee, sugar, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Coffee Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in the cold water.

  2. Add the hot water and strong coffee to the mixture.

  3. Stir in the sugar and vanilla extract until fully combined.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into a mold and refrigerate until set.

  2. Serve with whipped cream.

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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  2. Coffee + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,391 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Gelatine
Forms the firm, wobbly network that sets the liquid into a jelly.
Strong coffee
Provides the main coffee flavour and a slight bitterness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the coffee's bitterness.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatine fully in the cold water. Gelatine must be completely hydrated and dissolved before the hot liquids are added. Undissolved granules can leave lumps or stop the jelly from setting evenly.

“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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