No. 3249

Mocha Cake

Gateau Moka

Deposit in a vessel half a pound of sugar, six egg-yolks and one whole egg; beat for fifteen minutes to have it light, then add six ounces of flour and two ounces of fecula sifted together, also two tablespoonfuls of brandy, six ounces of melted butter, and lastly six well-whipped egg-whites. Bake this in a buttered and paper-lined pound-cake mold; as soon as done remove, un-mold on a grate and leave it there until perfectly cold. Now pare the cake very straight and cut it across in two even parts; fill it with a three-eights of an inch thick layer of Mocha cream (No. 45); cover the top and sides with the same and decorate the surface through a channeled socket pocket (Fig. 179), using more of the cream; dredge with Mocha sugar. Leave the cake in a cool place until required for serving.

Mocha Sugar is made by pounding loaf sugar in a mortar and passing it through a six-mesh sieve cloth (No. 94).

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For the Modern Kitchen

A genoise-style butter sponge, split once and masked in coffee buttercream. Ranhofer gives no oven temperature and no baking time, so the numbers below are the ones to supply.

Oven and panRanhofer gives no temperature; 350F works. A "pound-cake mold" is a deep, straight-sided cake or loaf mold, buttered and lined with paper as the recipe directs; expect 40 to 50 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean.
FeculaFecula is potato starch. Cornstarch is a workable substitute in the same weight, though potato starch gives the slightly drier, finer crumb the recipe is after.
Half a pound of sugarEight ounces, roughly 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of granulated. Flour is 6 oz (about 1 1/4 cups) and butter 6 oz (1 1/2 sticks), melted and cooled to barely warm.
The fifteen-minute beatingThis is hand-whisk time. In a stand mixer on high the yolk-and-sugar foam reaches the ribbon stage in 6 to 8 minutes. Underbeating here is the one failure that cannot be corrected later, since the eggs are the only leavening.
Folding in the butterMelted butter can deflate an egg foam. Ranhofer adds the butter before the whites, which go in last; if you reverse that and fold the whites in first, drizzle the butter down the side of the bowl in three additions, folding minimally between each.
Mocha cream (No. 45)A coffee buttercream. Any modern coffee buttercream at spreading consistency serves; chill the cake briefly before masking so the crumb does not tear.
Channeled socket pocketA piping bag fitted with a star or ribbed tip. Nothing more exotic is meant.
Mocha sugarLoaf sugar pounded and sifted through a six-mesh cloth is simply a coarse sanding sugar, noticeably grittier than granulated. Crushed sugar cubes, sieved, give the same effect.
YieldServes 10 to 12 in the thin slices intended for an entremets course. Keep it cool but serve near room temperature, or the buttercream tastes waxy.

A Little History

Gateau moka belongs to the Parisian patisserie of the second half of the nineteenth century, when coffee buttercream became a standard finish for a plain butter sponge. The name points to Mocha, the Yemeni Red Sea port that gave its name to coffee shipped westward, and by Ranhofer's day "moka" on a French menu meant coffee-flavored rather than any particular bean. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a working record of that kitchen, and this cake sits among the entremets - the sweet course. The technique is a separated-egg biscuit method rather than a textbook genoise: the yolks are beaten at length, the flour lightened with starch, and the whipped whites folded in last, a formula that carries the coffee cream without collapsing under it.