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Dessert

Mocha Icing

A chocolate coffee flavored icing made with butter, cocoa, coffee, and icing sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cocoa powder and coffee work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 541 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Mocha Icing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the icing

  1. In a bowl, combine butter, cocoa powder, and strong coffee.

  2. Gradually add icing sugar until you reach the desired consistency.

Finish

  1. For a smooth, glazed surface, use the icing while it's warm or heat it slightly over hot water.

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. Cocoa powder + coffeetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together541 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Cocoa powder + sugartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + cocoa powdertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  4. Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

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

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat that makes the icing smooth, creamy and easy to spread.
Cocoa powder
Provides the chocolate flavour and dark colour of the icing.
Strong coffee
Deepens the chocolate flavour and loosens the mixture into a liquid base.
Icing sugar
Sweetens the icing and thickens it as it dissolves and is added.

The step that matters

Warming the icing for a glazed surface. Gentle warmth keeps the icing fluid enough to spread into a smooth, glossy coat. Too much heat can melt the butter and thin the icing, while cold icing will stay thick and dull.

“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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