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Dessert

Mocha Cake

A layered cake made with butter, eggs, sugar, coffee, sponge fingers, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Mocha Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream mixture

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the egg yolks one by one, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Stir in the coffee until well combined.

Assemble and chill

  1. Spread a small amount of the cream mixture in the bottom of a cake tin.

  2. Place a layer of sponge fingers on top, followed by a layer of the cream mixture.

  3. Repeat the layers until the tin is filled.

  4. Refrigerate overnight.

Serve

  1. Turn out the cake and serve with cream.

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

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Coffee + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,339 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creates a rich, fatty base that gives the mixture body and a smooth texture.
Eggs
Egg yolks enrich the mixture and help bind it into a smooth, set cream.
Caster sugar
Sweetens the mixture and helps the butter cream up light when creamed together.
Strong black coffee
Adds the coffee flavour and liquid that moistens the mixture.
Sponge fingers
Absorb the coffee cream as they chill, softening into a cake-like structure.

The step that matters

Refrigerate overnight. The cake needs a long chill so the sponge fingers soften and absorb moisture from the cream, and the mixture firms enough to hold its shape when turned out.

“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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