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Dessert

Mocha Frosting

A chocolate and coffee flavored frosting for cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Coffee and cocoa 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

  1. In a bowl, mix the powdered sugar with the cream.

  2. Add the butter, cold coffee, dry cocoa, and vanilla.

  3. Stir until smooth and use on the cake while cold.

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 + cocoatop 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  5. Coffee + vanillatop 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

Powdered sugar
Provides sweetness and the bulk that gives the frosting its body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, creamy mouthfeel.
Cream
Adds moisture that loosens the sugar into a spreadable base.
Cold coffee
Adds liquid that deepens the chocolate flavor.
Dry cocoa
Supplies the chocolate flavor and dark color.

The step that matters

Stir until smooth. Powdered sugar and dry cocoa tend to clump. Stirring until smooth breaks up these lumps and dissolves the sugar evenly into the liquids, so the frosting spreads without gritty specks.

Swap the cocoa

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

  1. Almondfits about as well
  2. Cocoathe original
  3. Hazelnutfits about as well
  4. Chestnutfits less well

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

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