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Dessert

Cocoanut Snacks

A sweet candy made from sugar, glucose, molasses, chocolate, butter, water, walnuts, and shredded coconut.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and coconut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 606 recipes. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. The science ↓

Cocoanut Snacks

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. In a large pot, combine sugar, glucose, molasses, chocolate, butter, and water.

  2. Cook the mixture over medium heat until it reaches 236°F (113°C).

Shape and set

  1. Remove from heat and stir in walnuts and shredded coconut until well mixed.

  2. Pour the mixture onto a slab and roll it out to the height of caramels.

  3. Let it set for one hour, then cut into pieces the size of caramels.

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. Walnut + coconuttop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  2. Chocolate + coconuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Chocolate + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  4. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Provides sweetness and the bulk of the sugar structure that sets the bars firm.
Glucose
Inhibits crystallization, keeping the mixture smooth and chewy rather than grainy.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender, soft texture and rich flavor.
Shredded coconut
Adds chewy texture and bulk to the set bars.
English walnuts
Add crunch and a nutty flavor against the chewy base.

The step that matters

Cooking to 236°F (113°C). This temperature is the firm-ball stage for sugar syrup. Undercooking leaves the bars soft and sticky, while overcooking makes them hard and brittle once they set.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Peanutfits about as well
  3. Macadamia nutfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, molasses, chocolate, butter, coconut. 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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