Skip to main content
Dessert

Mocha Cream Cake

A layered cake with mocha-flavored cream filling and coffee icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 Cream Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the layers

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together, then add the sweet milk.

  3. Add the flour and baking powder.

  4. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  5. Divide the batter into three layers.

  6. Bake the layers until golden.

Make the filling

  1. Brew a scant ½ cup of strong coffee.

  2. Reserve 2 tablespoons of the coffee for icing.

  3. Add sweet milk to the coffee to make ½ pint.

  4. Heat the mixture in a double boiler until cool.

  5. Stir in sugar, flour, and beaten egg yolks.

  6. Cook for 15 minutes, stirring often.

  7. Let the filling cool slightly, then mix in butter.

  8. Spread the filling between the layers.

Ice the cake

  1. Beat powdered sugar and egg white together for icing.

  2. Add the reserved coffee and beat until light and smooth.

  3. Spread the icing on top of the cake.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Milk + coffeetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Butter and flour 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

Egg whites
Trap air when beaten, giving the layers lift and a light, airy crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together and thickens the filling.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the layers rise.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to both the cake and the filling.
Egg yolks
Thicken the filling as they cook, giving it a custard-like body.
Coffee
Adds bitter depth that flavours the filling and icing.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg yolk filling. Egg yolks thicken the filling as they heat, but they scramble and turn lumpy if overheated. Cooking gently in a double boiler and stirring often spreads the heat evenly and keeps the filling smooth.

“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.

You might also like

Coffee Ice CreamCoffee Ice Cream91 recipesCoffee CustardCoffee Custard27 recipesCoffee CakeCoffee Cake21 recipesCoffee Bavarian CreamCoffee Bavarian Cream14 recipes