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Dessert

Mocha Cake

A chocolate and coffee flavored cake with a butter‑cocoa filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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 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 cake

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

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs until light and fluffy. Add a pinch of salt, baking powder, sugar, and flour to the eggs.

  3. Stir in the boiling milk with melted butter until well combined.

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

Make the filling and assemble

  1. For the filling, cream together the butter, cocoa, confectioners' sugar, vanilla, and strong coffee.

  2. Spread the filling between the layers of cake and over the top.

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

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

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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
Beaten until light and fluffy, they trap air and give the cake its structure.
Flour
Provides the starch and gluten that set the cake's structure as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the cake rise and become light.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and keep moisture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb, and flavors the filling.
Cocoa
Gives the filling its chocolate flavor and deep color.

The step that matters

Beating the eggs until light and fluffy. Whipped eggs hold air that leavens the batter. If they are under-beaten, the cake may come out dense and flat, and the baking powder cannot make up for it.

Swap the cocoa

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour, milk, butter, vanilla, coffee. 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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