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Sauce

Coffee Sauce

A creamy sauce made with coffee, cream, egg yolk, cornstarch, and egg whites, sweetened to taste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the infusion

  1. Pour boiling cream over fine ground coffee.

  2. Cover and let stand for 15 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. Strain into a saucepan, sweeten, and stir in egg yolk and cornstarch.

  2. Bring to a boil over medium heat.

  3. Once cooled, fold in beaten egg whites.

  4. Chill before serving.

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 + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Cream
Provides richness and body, carrying the coffee flavor through the sauce.
Egg yolk
Thickens the sauce as it heats and adds richness.
Cornstarch
Thickens the sauce by swelling in the hot liquid.
Egg whites
Folded in whipped form to lighten the sauce's texture.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil over medium heat. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if overheated, and cornstarch needs to reach a boil to thicken fully. Keep heat moderate and stir constantly so the sauce thickens smoothly.

“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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