Skip to main content
Dessert

Mocha Frosting

Mocha frosting is a sweet icing made with powdered sugar, butter, coffee, and cocoa or vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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. Combine powdered sugar, melted butter, cocoa, and flavoring in a bowl.

  2. Add hot coffee to the mixture and stir 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. Coffee + cocoatop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together91 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Butter + cocoatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together548 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-undecalactone (coconut, creamy).

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

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

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + coffeetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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 bulk, forming the body of the frosting.
Melted butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich texture and mouthfeel.
Cocoa
Supplies chocolate flavor and deep color to the frosting.

The step that matters

Adding the hot coffee. Hot liquid dissolves the sugar quickly and helps the frosting become smooth; adding it all at once can make it too thin, so add it gradually while stirring.

“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

Coffee Ice CreamCoffee Ice Cream91 recipesCoffee CustardCoffee Custard27 recipesCoconut PuddingCoconut Pudding26 recipesCoffee CakeCoffee Cake21 recipes