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Dessert

Mocha Cake Icing

A butter and icing sugar icing flavored with coffee essence for a mocha cake.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Coffee and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,344 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Mocha Cake Icing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the icing

  1. Work the butter and icing sugar together until smooth.

  2. Add the coffee essence and mix well.

Fill and decorate

  1. Halve the cake and spread the icing between the layers.

  2. Use the remaining icing to decorate the 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. Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

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

  2. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + coffeetop 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

Fresh butter
Adds richness and a smooth, spreadable body to the icing.
Icing sugar
Sweetens the icing and, with the butter, gives it a smooth texture.
Coffee essence
Provides the coffee flavour that makes the icing mocha.

The step that matters

Working the butter and icing sugar until smooth. Beating the butter and sugar together until smooth creates an even, airy base. Any lumps of sugar or cold, unblended butter will not blend out later, leaving a grainy icing once the coffee essence is added.

“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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