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Dessert

Cocoanut Cookies

A sweet cookie made with butter, sugar, eggs, grated coconut, baking powder, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and coconut 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 Cookies

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.

  2. Add the eggs and mix well.

  3. Stir in the grated coconut and baking powder.

  4. Gradually add flour until the dough is manageable.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough very thin and cut into desired shapes.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until just set, but do not 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. Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Coconut + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,315 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to create a tender, rich texture in the cookies.
Sugar
Creams with butter for sweetness and a crisp, tender crumb.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure as the cookies set.
Grated coconut
Adds coconut flavour and chewy texture to the cookies.
Baking powder
Releases gas to lift the cookies slightly as they bake.
Flour
Adds structure so the dough can be rolled and cut.

The step that matters

Bake until just set, not brown. Cookies rolled very thin can overbake quickly, and continued browning turns them dry and bitter. Removing them when just set keeps them tender and golden rather than hard.

Swap the coconut

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

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

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