''Café liégeois'' is a French cold

dessert Dessert is a course (food), course that concludes a meal; the course consists of sweet foods, such as cake, biscuit, ice cream, and possibly a beverage, such as dessert wine or liqueur. Some cultures sweeten foods that are more commonly umami, ...

made from lightly sweetened

coffee Coffee is a beverage brewed from roasted, ground coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content, but decaffeinated coffee is also commercially a ...

, coffee-flavoured

ice cream Ice cream is a frozen dessert typically made from milk or cream that has been flavoured with a sweetener, either sugar or an alternative, and a spice, such as Chocolate, cocoa or vanilla, or with fruit, such as strawberries or peaches. Food ...

and Chantilly cream. Refrigerate a large glass filled with the required amount of sweetened coffee, and add the ice cream and Chantilly just prior to serving. Often crushed roasted coffee beans are put on top of the Chantilly as decoration.

History

Contrary to its name, the ''café liégeois'' dessert did not originate in or around

Liège Liège ( ; ; ; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and Municipalities in Belgium, municipality of Wallonia, and the capital of the Liège Province, province of Liège, Belgium. The city is situated in the valley of the Meuse, in the east o ...

, Belgium. It was originally known in France as a ''café viennois'' ( French for '

Viennese Viennese may refer to: * Vienna, the capital of Austria * Viennese people, List of people from Vienna * Viennese German, the German dialect spoken in Vienna * Viennese classicism * Viennese coffee house, an eating establishment and part of Viennese ...

coffee'). At the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Belgium refused a German ultimatum demanding free passage through its territory to attack France. German forces invaded on August 4, but the city of Liège mounted a fierce 12-day resistance, delaying the German advance and aiding French preparations. In recognition, France awarded Liège the Légion d'honneur. Amid strong anti-German sentiment in Paris, the popular ''café viennois''—named after Vienna, capital of Austria-Hungary, Germany’s ally—was renamed ''café liégeois'' in tribute to the Belgian city’s heroism. Café liégeois is a French dessert made of sweetened iced coffee or coffee ice cream topped with whipped cream (''crème Chantilly''). It evolved from 19th-century recipes and was first named ''Café liégeois'' in the ''Larousse Gastronomique'' (1938). It is often confused with ''café viennois'', a hot coffee with whipped cream. Auguste Escoffier’s ''Guide Culinaire'' (1907) features a recipe for iced coffee, where freshly brewed coffee is combined with sugar, milk, and cream, then churned in an ice cream maker. This method for iced coffee appeared in numerous culinary works, but the term ''café viennois'' or ''café liégeois'' was not yet used. In 1936, Madame A. Moerman's ''Livre pratique de cuisine'' introduced a recipe for ''café viennois'', which involved making a coffee-flavored custard and serving it with whipped cream. In 1938, the ''Larousse Gastronomique'' first referenced ''café liégeois'', noting that iced coffee, when topped with whipped cream, became ''café liégeois''. This marked the first official mention of the term, 20 years after World War I. By the 1960 edition of ''Nouveau Larousse gastronomique'', the recipe for iced coffee remained the same, confirming that the addition of whipped cream defined ''café liégeois''.

References

liégeois Frozen desserts Ice cream Iced coffee {{France-dessert-stub

History

See also

References