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Dessert

Coffee Icing

A cake made with eggs, sugar, flour, baking powder, and butter, topped with a coffee‑flavored butter icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour 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 ↓

Coffee Icing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cake

  1. In a basin, beat the eggs and sugar over hot water until warm, about 10 minutes.

  2. Remove the basin and continue beating for 5 minutes.

  3. Sift in the flour and baking powder, and stir gently.

  4. Pour the mixture into a buttered and sugared mold, and bake until done.

  5. Remove from the tin and let it cool completely.

Make the icing and decorate

  1. For the icing, beat the butter and sugar until white and creamy.

  2. Gradually add the cold coffee, a few drops at a time, until it forms a firm, smooth paste.

  3. Transfer the icing to a piping bag and decorate the cake in a Turkish pattern.

  4. Place the decorated cake in a cold area until ready to serve.

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

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

  4. Butter + sugartop 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).

Butter and flour 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 (in the method)
Beaten with sugar over warm water, they trap air that gives the cake its light structure.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure once set by heat, holding the trapped air in place.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the cake rise and turn light and open.
Fine sugar
Sweetens the cake and, when beaten with eggs, helps stabilise the foam.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and flavour to the icing and gives it a smooth, creamy body.
Strong coffee
Flavours the icing and, added slowly, helps it set into a firm, smooth paste.

The step that matters

Beating the eggs and sugar over hot water. Warming the eggs and sugar helps the sugar dissolve and the foam hold more air, so the batter rises well. Under-beating leaves a dense cake.

“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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