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Mocha Cake

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Coffee and cocoa work together. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 91 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Mocha Cake

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the eggs until very light.

  2. Gradually add the sugar and continue beating.

  3. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  4. Mix the dry ingredients into the egg mixture.

  5. Stir in the boiling water, melted butter, salt, and vanilla.

  6. For the filling, cream the butter and confectioner's sugar together.

  7. Gradually add the coffee, cocoa, and vanilla, mixing until smooth.

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. Coffee + cocoatop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together91 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Vanilla + cocoatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together357 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  5. Vanilla + coffeetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,391 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Swap the cocoa

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Hazelnutfits better
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Cocoathe original

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

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