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Dessert

Cocoanut Cream Cake

A layered cake with coconut cream filling and coconut frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cocoanut Cream 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.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar, then add the beaten eggs and milk.

  3. Gradually mix in the sifted flour and baking powder until smooth.

  4. Divide the batter into layers and bake until golden.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, heat 1 cup of milk in a dish set in hot water.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix 1 egg, ½ cup sugar, and 1 tablespoon cornstarch.

  3. Stir this mixture into the boiling milk until thickened.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in ½ cup desiccated coconut.

Assemble and finish

  1. Assemble the layers with the cream filling, frost the top, and sprinkle with dry coconut.

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

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

  2. Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and thicken the filling when set by heat.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, tenderizing the crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as it sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the layers rise.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk filling into a smooth, sliceable cream.
Desiccated coconut
Adds coconut flavor and a chewy texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg mixture into the boiling milk. Egg and cornstarch thicken only when heated, but eggs can scramble if added too fast or without constant stirring. Keeping the milk hot and stirring steadily lets the starch gelatinize smoothly into an even cream.

Swap the coconut

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

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

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