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Dessert

Mocha Tarts

Mocha tarts made with a white cake base, chocolate filling, and powdered sugar frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Mocha Tarts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cakes

  1. Prepare a good white cake recipe.

  2. Bake the cake in thin layers.

  3. Cut the layers into small cakes.

  4. Stack 2 or 3 cakes together based on thickness.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, mix sugar, flour, and salt.

  2. Add slightly beaten eggs and pour in the scalded milk.

  3. Cook the mixture in a double boiler for 15 minutes or until thick.

  4. Cool and flavor the mixture.

Finish the filling

  1. Beat the butter, then gradually add powdered sugar until creamy.

  2. Mix in the cooled cream filling, melted chocolate, and vanilla.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Their proteins set when heated, thickening the custard and giving it body.
Flour
Its starch swells when heated, helping thicken the custard and hold its shape.
Scalded milk
Provides the liquid base of the custard, adding moisture and richness.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the filling rich and smooth-textured.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps give the filling its body.
Melted chocolate
Gives the filling its mocha flavor and deep color.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard until thick. Eggs and starch thicken the mixture as it heats, but too much heat can curdle the eggs and leave lumps. Keep the double boiler gentle and stop once the custard is thick.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, egg, milk, butter, cream, chocolate):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, egg, milk, butter, cream, chocolate. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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