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Dessert

Mocha Tart

A layered chocolate‑flavored tart with whipped cream and mocha icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 Tart

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.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. Beat the egg yolks, baking powder, and sugar to a cream.

  3. Add the mocha extract and flour, mixing well.

  4. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake and fill

  1. Bake the mixture in three layers until golden.

  2. Whip the cream and mix in the confectioner's sugar.

  3. Spread the whipped cream between the layers and on top.

Ice and finish

  1. For the icing, combine confectioner's sugar and mocha extract, adding a little cream if it seems stiff.

  2. Ice the top and sides of the tart with the mocha icing.

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. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

Egg yolks
Enrich the batter and add richness and color to the sponge.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in to lighten the batter and give the layers a airy structure.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the layers rise and become light.
Flour
Provides the starch and gluten that give the layers their structure.
Cream
Whipped to a filling that adds moisture and a soft, creamy texture between layers.
Sugar
Sweetens the layers and helps the yolks whip to a light, creamy base.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air beaten into the whites; stirring vigorously deflates the batter, so the layers bake up dense and flat.

“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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