French Coffee
Make according to the recipe for Black Coffee but use milk which has been brought to the boiling point, instead of water.
A two-line variation that depends entirely on the book's earlier Black Coffee entry: strong coffee extended with hot milk rather than hot water. What the period called French coffee is what most menus now call café au lait.
- Read the base recipe firstThis is an instruction to substitute, not a standalone method. Whatever the book's Black Coffee entry specifies for quantity of coffee, liquid and method has to be read across to this one; without it there is no recipe here at all.
- "Brought to the boiling point" means scalded"Brought to the boiling point" -- Period usage means taken just up to a boil rather than held there. Practically, stop when the milk steams and a ring of small bubbles forms at the edge: milk kept at a rolling boil skins over, catches on the pan bottom and takes on a cooked, faintly sulphurous flavour that dominates the cup.
- Milk choiceWhole milk is what the book assumes. Skim milk gives a thin, grey cup; heavy cream turns it into something closer to a dessert. Non-dairy milks can curdle in hot acidic coffee, so warm them gently and pour the coffee into the milk rather than the reverse.
- Pour and temperatureWarm the cups first. Coffee and milk at similar heat, combined in a warmed vessel, gives a drink that survives being carried to the table; cold milk knocks the temperature down sharply on contact.
- YieldThe original gives none. Allow about 8 oz of finished coffee per serving, which fills a large breakfast cup.
Coffee sections in books of this kind lean heavily on national labels — French, Turkish, Viennese, Russian — that describe a serving style rather than an origin. French here means the milk: café au lait, the near-equal mixture of strong coffee and scalded milk long associated with the French breakfast table, and often distinguished in period cookbooks from Viennese coffee, which took whipped cream instead.