Skip to main content
Dessert

Coffee Jelly

A chilled coffee-flavored gelatin dessert made with coffee, water, sugar, and gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Dissolve the gelatine

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water for 2 hours.

  2. Pour the boiling water and strong coffee over the soaked gelatine.

  3. Stir until all the gelatine is dissolved, then add the sugar.

Set the jelly

  1. Strain into molds and set on ice to cool.

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).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Forms a gel network that sets the liquid into a firm jelly.
Strong coffee
Gives the jelly its coffee flavour and dark colour.
Sugar
Sweetens the jelly and balances the bitterness of the coffee.

The step that matters

Stir until all the gelatine is dissolved. Undissolved gelatine grains do not join the gel network, which leaves specks and a weak or uneven set. Stirring until fully dissolved before adding the sugar gives a smooth, evenly firm jelly.

“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.

You might also like

Coffee Ice CreamCoffee Ice Cream91 recipesCoffee CustardCoffee Custard27 recipesCoffee CakeCoffee Cake21 recipesCoffee Bavarian CreamCoffee Bavarian Cream14 recipes