Name: Acorn Coffee
Ingredients: sound ripe acorns; butter or fat; real coffee

Why it works: Butter and coffee are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,442 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Acorn Coffee

Ingredients

sound ripe acorns
butter or fat
real coffee

Directions

Peel the acorns and roast them with a little butter or fat.
Once cooled, grind the roasted acorns with one-third of their weight in real coffee.

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.

Butter + coffeetop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,442 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Acorn + buttertop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Acorn + coffeetop 39% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1 recipe

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).