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Dessert

Chess Cakes

A coconut cake made with grated coconut, sugar, water, butter, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Chess Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the coconut mixture

  1. Boil sugar in water for 15 minutes.

  2. Stir in grated coconut and boil for another 15 minutes.

  3. While warm, stir in butter.

  4. Add beaten egg yolks and mix well.

Bake

  1. Bake in patty pans lined with rich pastry.

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. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and, once boiled, thickens it into a syrup that binds the coconut.
Grated coconut
Provides the main texture and coconut flavour, and holds moisture in the filling.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender texture as it melts into the warm mixture.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind and thicken the filling as they set with heat.

The step that matters

Add beaten egg yolks and mix well. Egg yolks thicken and can curdle or turn lumpy when heated unevenly, so mixing them thoroughly into the filling keeps it smooth and evenly set.

Swap the coconut

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, 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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