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Dessert

Mocha Cakes

Mocha Cakes are a sweet cake flavored with lemon rind, coffee icing, and chopped almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Mocha Cakes

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.

Make the batter

  1. Whisk the eggs and sugar over hot water until thick.

  2. Continue whisking until cold, then add the lemon rind and sifted flour.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a flat square pan at 350°F (175°C) for 15 to 20 minutes.

  2. Once cool, cover with coffee icing and sprinkle with chopped almonds.

  3. Cut into squares or fancy shapes and decorate with vienna icing flavored with strong coffee.

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 + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Coffee + almondtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together374 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetylpyrazine (roast).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
Whisked with sugar to trap air, giving the sponge its light, airy structure.
Sugar
Whisked with the eggs to help build a stable foam and add sweetness.
Flour
Sets during baking to give the cake its body and structure.
Chopped brown almonds
Add crunch and nutty flavor on top of the iced cake.

The step that matters

Continue whisking until cold. Whisking the egg and sugar foam until cold keeps it thick and stable, so the air it holds is not lost when the flour is folded in and the cake bakes.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour, coffee, almond. 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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