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Dessert

Coffee Cream

A chilled coffee-flavored cream made with gelatin, sugar, heavy cream, and brewed coffee.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Cream and gelatin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,628 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Coffee Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the coffee cream

  1. Soak the gelatin in a little cold water.

  2. Combine the sugar, brewed coffee, and soaked gelatin in a double boiler.

  3. Cook the mixture until the gelatin and sugar are dissolved.

  4. Add the heavy cream and mix well.

  5. Pour the mixture into a mold and refrigerate until set.

Serve

  1. 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. Cream + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Cream + coffeetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,339 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + coffeetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Heavy cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the set cream a smooth, creamy texture.
Gelatin
Sets the liquid mixture into a firm, sliceable texture as it cools.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and helps balance the bitterness of the coffee.
Brewed coffee
Provides the coffee flavor and liquid base for the cream.

The step that matters

Dissolving the gelatin fully. Gelatin must be fully dissolved before the cream is poured and chilled. Undissolved granules leave gritty specks and weak spots, so the set will be uneven.

“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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