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Dessert

Mocha Cake

A layered cake made with egg whites, yolks, sugar, flour, baking powder, mocha, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Mocha Cake

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 egg whites until very stiff.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks with sugar until creamy.

  4. Add mocha to the yolk mixture and mix well.

  5. Sift in the flour and baking powder, then fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake and assemble

  1. Divide the batter into 4 layers and bake until golden.

  2. Once cooled, layer the cake with whipped cream flavored with mocha.

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

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

  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. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff foam, they trap air that gives the cake its light structure and lift.
Flour
Its proteins set during baking, giving the layers structure once the batter firms.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the layers rise and become tender.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and, when beaten with yolks, helps create a smooth, creamy base.
Mocha
Provides the coffee-chocolate flavor and aroma that defines the cake.
Whipped cream
Adds moisture and richness between the layers and softens the cake's texture.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air bubbles in the stiff whites intact. Those bubbles expand in the oven and provide much of the rise, so overmixing or stirring vigorously deflates the batter and yields 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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