Skip to main content
Dessert

Cocoanut and Almond Cake

A layered cake with coconut, almonds, and rose water icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Cocoanut and Almond Cake

Why it works: Nutmeg and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Cocoanut and Almond Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream the butter and powdered sugar together.

  3. Stir in the lemon juice, lemon zest, and nutmeg.

  4. Alternately mix in the milk, egg whites, and flour until well combined.

  5. Gently fold in the grated cocoanut.

  6. Divide the batter into four jelly-cake tins and bake until golden.

Prepare the almond filling

  1. For the filling, blanch the almonds and let them cool and dry.

  2. Pound the almonds in a mortar, adding rose water gradually.

  3. Reserve about two dozen almonds to shred for the top.

Assemble and finish

  1. Mix the almond paste into the icing after it is made.

  2. Spread the icing between the cooled cakes and apply a thicker layer on top.

  3. Press the shredded almonds onto the top icing.

  4. Place the cake in the oven to harden, being careful not to scorch.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Egg whites
Whisked stiff to trap air, lifting and structuring the cake.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together.
Sweet almonds
Pounded into paste, adding body, flavour and moisture to the filling and icing.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps form a fine, tender texture when creamed.

The step that matters

Place the cake in the oven to harden, being careful not to scorch.. Icing set in gentle heat firms up as sugar and egg proteins dry and set. Too much heat browns the sugars quickly, scorching the top before the icing has hardened.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, flour, egg, milk, nutmeg, almond):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, egg, milk, nutmeg, almond. 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes