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Cocoanut Sponge Cake

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and coconut are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,233 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Cocoanut Sponge Cake

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs with the sugar until well combined.

  2. Add the flour and lemon essence, mixing until smooth.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until frothy.

  4. Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the yolk mixture.

  5. Stir in the grated coconut until evenly distributed.

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. Lemon + coconuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  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 + coconuttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,315 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Swap the coconut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, flour, lemon):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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