Why it works: Cream and sugar 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
Make the coffee base
Pour the milk into a double boiler and add the coffee.
Bring the milk to a boil, then remove it from the heat.
Strain the mixture through a fine muslin and set aside to cool.
Finish and freeze
Once cool, add the sugar, beaten cream, and beaten egg white.
Freeze the mixture.
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.
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Milk + coffeetop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,202 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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Cream + coffeetop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,339 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
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Sugar + coffeetop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,344 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Milk
- Forms the dairy base that carries the coffee flavor and gives the ice cream its body.
- Coffee
- Provides the main flavor, extracted into the hot milk and then strained out.
- Cream
- Adds fat for a rich, smooth texture that resists becoming icy.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and softens the frozen texture by lowering the freezing point.
- Egg white
- Beaten, it traps air to lighten the mixture and add a fluffier texture.
The step that matters
Cool the strained mixture before adding the cream and egg white. Beaten cream and egg white hold air best when cold. Adding them to a warm base can melt the cream's fat and deflate the foam, leaving a denser, less light ice cream.
“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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