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Iced Café Au Lait
1 cup medium ground coffee. 3 cups boiling water.
White 1 egg. 3 cups scalded milk. 1 cup cold water.
PROCESS: Scald enameled coffee pot. Beat white of egg slightly. Dilute with one-half cup cold water, mix with coffee, turn into coffee pot and add boiling water, stir until well mixed. Place on range and let boil five minutes. Stir down and pour some into a cup to clear the spout of grounds. Return to pot and add remaining half cup of cold water. Place on back of range for ten minutes, where it will keep hot but not boil. After removing coffee to back of range, put milk into double boiler and, when scalded, pour the two together in another scalded coffee pot. Chill and serve.
This is boiled egg coffee, cleared with white of egg and then combined with scalded milk and chilled. The method is sound but the proportions and the boiling need translating for a modern kitchen.
- The hinge: the egg whiteThe beaten white, slaked with cold water and stirred through the dry grounds, coagulates as the pot heats and traps the fines in a raft. Skip it and five minutes of hard boiling gives you silt and bitterness rather than clear coffee.
- "Medium ground"Coarser than a fine drip or espresso grind, roughly a percolator grind, though not as coarse as French press. Very fine grounds will slip past the egg raft and cloud the cup.
- Strength and yieldOne cup of grounds to four cups of water total is very strong by design, since it is cut with three cups of milk and then chilled. It makes about seven cups, or six generous glasses over ice.
- "Place on range" and "back of range"A coal or gas range had a hot front plate and a cool rear shelf. On a modern hob, boil over medium heat, then move to the lowest setting or off the heat entirely for the ten-minute steep.
- Scalded milkHeated to about 180F, just until it steams and a skin begins to form. With pasteurised milk the step is no longer necessary for keeping quality, but it does dissolve into the coffee more smoothly and reduces the chance of a curdled look.
- The enamelled potEnamel was the usual recommendation for coffee, period cooks holding that bare iron and tin gave a metallic taste. Any non-reactive pot or saucepan works; stainless or glass is fine. Scalding it preheats the pot so the brew does not stall.
- ChillingCool it uncovered to room temperature before refrigerating, then chill thoroughly. Pouring the hot mixture straight over ice waters it down; if you want it iced immediately, freeze some of the coffee into cubes.
- ServingThe recipe gives no sweetening. Add sugar while the coffee is still hot, or use a syrup, since granulated sugar dissolves slowly and poorly in a cold glass.
Egg coffee of this kind was one common way to get a clear cup before paper filters were in general use: the albumen in the white sets around the suspended grounds and drags them down, the same principle used to fine wine and clarify consomme. It survived longest in Scandinavian-American church halls, where it is still made in quantity. Cafe au lait, simply "coffee with milk," came into English-language cookbooks from French domestic practice, where coffee and hot milk were poured together into the cup in roughly equal measure; serving it iced was a summer variation.