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Dessert

Mocha Cake

A coffee-flavored cake with a cream filling and egg white icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Mocha 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  3. In another bowl, beat the egg yolks with sugar until light and fluffy.

  4. Add warm water, salt, and coffee extract to the yolk mixture.

  5. Sift the flour and baking powder together six times, then fold into the yolk mixture.

  6. Gently mix in the beaten egg whites.

Bake and fill

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for about 25-30 minutes.

  2. For the filling, beat the cream until stiff, then mix in confectioner's sugar and coffee extract.

Make the icing

  1. For the icing, beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add confectioner's sugar and flavor to taste.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Coffee + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,339 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Sugar + coffeetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

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

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
Whipped whites and yolks provide the airy structure that lifts the cake.
Flour
Gluten forms the main structure that holds the cake's crumb together.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the yolks whip to a light, fluffy texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven, helping the cake rise and become light.
Coffee extract
Gives the cake its coffee flavor and mocha character.
Heavy cream
Whipped into a stiff filling that adds richness and moisture.

The step that matters

Folding the egg whites into the batter. Whites hold air only if they are whipped to stiff peaks and folded gently; overmixing deflates them, leaving a dense, flat cake.

“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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