Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and 43,450 recipes mention both. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Cocoanut Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Boil the sugar and water together until, when dropped in cold water, it can be rolled between the fingers into a ball.
Remove from the fire.
Finish and shape
Stir with a wooden spoon until it becomes white and thick like cream.
Add the coconut and stir well.
Drop with the spoon onto paraffin paper or a tin baking sheet.
Form into thin round cakes.
Set away to dry.
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. See the original page.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Granulated sugar
- Forms the syrup that sets and gives the cakes their sweetness.
- Grated cocoanut
- Adds texture and coconut flavour to the cakes.
- Water
- Dissolves the sugar so it can be boiled into a syrup.
The step that matters
Stirring the cooled syrup until white and thick. Stirring lets the syrup cool and crystallise into a creamy, opaque mass. If stirred too little, the mixture stays runny and will not hold its shape when dropped.
“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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