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Dessert

Mocha Cocoa Cake

A layered cake with mocha‑flavored butter filling and coffee‑cocoa icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Mocha Cocoa Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the cake batter

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

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the beaten yolks of the eggs and mix well.

  4. Stir in the milk, baking powder, and flour until combined.

  5. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites and vanilla extract.

Bake and fill

  1. Divide the batter into three layers and bake until golden.

  2. For the filling, cream the butter and wash off any salt.

  3. Mix the creamed butter with confectioner's sugar, coffee, cocoa, and vanilla until smooth.

  4. Spread the filling between the layers of cake.

Ice

  1. Cover the entire cake with icing made from confectioner's sugar and strong coffee.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Coffee + cocoa powdertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together541 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whites trapped by folding add lift and a light, airy crumb; yolks add richness and structure.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake tenderness and a rich flavor.
All-purpose flour
Forms the cake's main structure once its proteins set in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the cake rise and become light.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps create a fine, tender texture when creamed with butter.
Cocoa powder
Gives the filling its chocolate flavor and deep color.

The step that matters

Folding in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only while whipped; overmixing or deflating them during folding removes the foam that makes the cake rise and stay light.

“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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