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Dessert

Cocoanut Puffs

A baked coconut puff made with egg whites, sugar, cornstarch, and shredded coconut.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Cocoanut Puffs

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.

Prepare

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

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  3. Gently fold in the sugar and cornstarch.

Make the mixture

  1. Place the bowl in a dish of boiling water and stir for 20 minutes.

  2. Remove from heat and fold in the shredded coconut.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto a greased baking sheet.

  2. Bake until light brown.

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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + coconuttop 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

Egg whites
Whipped into stiff peaks, they give the puffs their light, airy structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and helps stabilise the whipped egg white foam.
Cornstarch
Thickens the mixture slightly, helping it hold its shape when heated.
Shredded coconut
Adds flavour, chewy texture and some fat to the puffs.

The step that matters

Stirring over boiling water. Stirring the mixture over boiling water gently heats the egg whites and thickens the mixture while keeping it airy. Overheating or stirring too vigorously can deflate the foam, so the puffs turn out dense.

Swap the coconut

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

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

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