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Dessert

Coconut Custard Pie

A baked pie with a coconut custard filling made from eggs, milk, sugar, butter, vanilla, and coconut.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and coconut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,294 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Coconut Custard Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

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

  2. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

Make the filling

  1. Add sugar, melted butter, and milk to the eggs and mix well.

  2. Stir in the coconut and vanilla extract.

  3. Pour the mixture into the unbaked pie shell.

Bake

  1. Bake for 30 minutes or until set.

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. Vanilla + coconuttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,294 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Set the custard as they cook, giving the filling its structure.
Milk
Provides liquid that forms the custard and keeps the filling moist.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps tenderise the custard texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing to a smooth, tender filling.
Coconut
Adds coconut flavour and chewy texture to the custard.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs thicken as they heat, so the custard must be baked until just set. Underbaking leaves a runny filling, while overbaking can make it grainy or cracked.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Peachfits about as well
  3. Coconutthe original
  4. Strawberryfits about as well

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