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Dessert

Parfait Au Cafe

A chilled dessert made with sugar, egg yolks, cream, coffee, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓

Parfait Au Cafe

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. Beat the sugar and egg yolks together in a saucepan.

  2. Add the cream and heat over medium heat, stirring until thick.

  3. Add the ground coffee, cover, and let it infuse for 1 hour.

  4. Strain the mixture into an ice cream maker.

Churn and freeze

  1. Pack as for ice cream and churn in one direction for 5 minutes.

  2. Change direction and churn for another 5 minutes.

  3. Once sufficiently frozen, gently fold in the whipped cream a little at a time.

  4. Pour the mixture into an ice cream mold and pack in ice and salt for 1 hour.

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

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

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness through their emulsifying fats and proteins.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the frozen parfait a smooth, creamy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and lowers the freezing point, keeping the parfait soft rather than hard.
Coarsely ground coffee
Infuses coffee flavour into the custard as it steeps in the warm cream.
Whipped cream
Adds air and lightness, making the frozen parfait softer and more mousse-like.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard until thick. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but overheating can scramble them into lumps. Stir over medium heat and stop once the custard coats a spoon.

“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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