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Dessert

Mocha Cake

A layered sponge cake with coffee-flavored frosting, coconut, and candied cherries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Coconut and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Mocha Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Bake and layer

  1. Bake the sponge cake mixture in round layer cake pans.

  2. Layer the cakes with a thin layer of frosting between them.

Frost and decorate

  1. Spread frosting on the sides of the cake and cover with grated coconut.

  2. Fill a pastry bag with the remaining frosting and attach a star tube.

  3. Twist the bag tightly and guide the tube to pipe icing on top of the cake.

  4. Coil the icing around the top until the surface is covered.

  5. Finish with stars made from icing and candied cherries.

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. Coconut + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Coconut + coffeetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together104 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Coconut + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Sponge cake mixture
Bakes into the cake layers that give the dessert its structure and crumb.
Frosting
Adds sweetness and moisture, and binds the cake layers together.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and a fine texture to the icing.

The step that matters

Piping the icing on top. Twist the bag tightly and apply steady, even pressure so the icing flows evenly through the star tube. Frosting that is too soft will not hold its star shape, while frosting that is too stiff resists flowing through the tube and can burst the bag.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Bananafits about as well
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, coffee. 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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