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Dessert

Mocha Filling

A creamy mocha filling made with milk, egg yolks, sugar, coffee, and creamed butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Mocha Filling

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Bring the milk to a boil.

  2. Pour a little hot milk over the beaten egg yolks and sugar, whipping well.

  3. Add the remaining milk and strong coffee.

  4. Boil the mixture for 1 minute, stirring constantly.

  5. Remove from heat and stir until thick and creamy.

  6. Mix in the creamed butter until well combined.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + coffeetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  5. Sugar + buttertop 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set when heated, and add richness.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the egg yolks thicken into a custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps protect the egg yolks from scrambling.
Strong coffee
Adds the coffee flavor that makes this a mocha filling.
Creamed butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy texture to the finished filling.

The step that matters

Pour a little hot milk over the beaten egg yolks and sugar, whipping well.. Adding hot liquid to yolks slowly while whisking tempers them, so the yolks warm gradually instead of scrambling into lumps before the custard thickens.

“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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