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Dessert

Mocha Torte

A coffee-flavored layered cake with powdered sugar filling and walnuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Mocha Torte

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 eggs and sugar together for fifteen minutes.

  3. Add the baking powder, coffee, flour, and essence to the egg mixture and mix well.

Bake and fill

  1. Bake in layers.

Make the filling and assemble

  1. Prepare the filling while the layers cool.

  2. Mix the powdered sugar and essence, add the beaten egg, then add the butter.

  3. Spread the filling between the layers.

  4. Top with whole walnuts.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 with sugar, they trap air that lifts the layers and add structure.
Sugar
Beaten with the eggs to stabilise the foam and add sweetness.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the baked layers together.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the layers rise.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture in the filling.
Coffee
Gives the cake its mocha flavour.

The step that matters

Beating the eggs and sugar. Beating the eggs and sugar for a full fifteen minutes whips air into a stable foam that gives the layers their lift. Once the flour and other dry ingredients go in, mix only until combined, because extra stirring develops gluten and makes the layers tough.

“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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