Skip to main content
Dessert

Mocha Frosting

A chocolate and coffee flavored frosting made with powdered sugar, cocoa, coffee, butter, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cocoa and coffee 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 Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, sift together the pulverized sugar and dry cocoa.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the hot coffee with the butter until melted.

Make the frosting

  1. Beat the coffee mixture into the sugar and cocoa until well combined.

  2. Add a little vanilla and mix 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. Cocoa + coffeetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together91 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Cocoa + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together357 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  4. Coffee + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,391 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Walnut + vanillatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,730 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Pulverized sugar
Provides sweetness and the bulk that gives the frosting its body.
Dry cocoa
Supplies the chocolate flavour and deep colour.
Strong hot coffee
Deepens the chocolate flavour and helps dissolve the cocoa and sugar.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, soft texture as it melts into the mixture.

The step that matters

Beat the coffee mixture into the sugar and cocoa until well combined. If the liquid is added all at once or not beaten enough, lumps of dry cocoa and sugar remain. Thorough mixing dissolves the sugar and distributes the cocoa evenly for a smooth frosting.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Nutsfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cocoa, coffee, butter, vanilla. 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

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesCoffee Ice CreamCoffee Ice Cream91 recipesCoffee CustardCoffee Custard27 recipesCoconut PuddingCoconut Pudding26 recipes