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Molasses Sliced Cocoanut

A sweet treat of sliced coconut coated in molasses and butter, baked until soft crack.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 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 ↓

Molasses Sliced Cocoanut

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Open, pare, and slice the coconuts.

Cook the coconut

  1. In a saucepan over low heat, combine the molasses and butter.

  2. Once it boils, add the sliced coconuts.

  3. Stir continuously over low heat until it reaches the soft crack stage in winter or crack stage in summer.

Shape and store

  1. Pour onto a greased surface and spread thin with a palette knife.

  2. Cut into desired bar sizes and wrap in wax paper during summer.

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. Molasses + buttertop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,123 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Coconut + molassestop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together96 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh coconuts
Provide the bulk and chewy texture of the sliced pieces.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and deep flavor, and hardens as the syrup cooks to the crack stage.
Sweet butter
Adds richness and a smoother, softer mouthfeel to the molasses mixture.

The step that matters

Stirring to the crack stage. Molasses scorches easily over heat, so constant stirring prevents burnt patches. The final stage of cooking determines how firm the set candy becomes, so stopping at the right point matters.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, 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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