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Dessert

Mocha Filling

A sweet filling made from coffee, sugar, butter, and egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Mocha Filling

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the coffee and sugar together until very thick and forms beads.

  2. Cream the egg yolk and butter together.

  3. Pour the boiling syrup into the butter and egg mixture, stirring continuously.

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. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Coffee + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Strong coffee
Provides the main coffee flavour and liquid for the syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and, boiled down, thickens into a syrup that sets the texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy body to the filling.
Egg yolk
Emulsifies with the butter and syrup, helping the filling become smooth and thick.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling syrup into the butter and egg mixture. The hot syrup can scramble the egg yolk if poured in too fast or not stirred continuously. Steady pouring while stirring lets the yolk and butter emulsify smoothly into the syrup.

“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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