Skip to main content
Dessert

Mocha Tarts

Mocha tarts made from layered white cake topped with chocolate‑coffee buttercream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

Bake the cakes

  1. Bake a white cake in thin layers and cut into small cakes.

  2. Stack 2 or 3 layers together based on thickness.

Make the filling

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

  2. Add slightly beaten eggs and scalded milk to the dry ingredients.

  3. Cook in a double boiler for 15 minutes or until thick; cool and flavor.

Make the frosting

  1. For frosting, beat butter and gradually add powdered sugar until creamy.

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

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
Thicken the custard as they set with heat, giving it body and structure.
Flour
Stabilizes the custard filling, helping it thicken smoothly and hold its shape.
Butter
Adds richness and a creamy texture to the frosting.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the frosting and helps give it a smooth, creamy body.
Baker's chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and color that makes the tarts mocha.

The step that matters

Cook the custard in a double boiler. Gentle indirect heat lets the egg and starch mixture thicken evenly. Direct high heat can scramble the eggs or scorch the milk, leaving lumps or a grainy texture.

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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesChocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipes