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Dessert

Cocoanut Pie

A sweet pie with coconut filling and a puff pastry crust, topped with stiffened egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Cocoanut Pie

Why it works: Milk and coconut are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,648 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cocoanut Pie

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 crust

  1. Make a puff pastry by mixing flour, salt, lard, and water.

  2. Line two pie plates with the pastry.

Make the filling

  1. Beat the egg yolks with sugar.

  2. Add sweet milk and grated coconut to the yolk mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into the pie crusts.

Top and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites with a little sugar until stiff.

  2. Spread the stiffened egg whites on top of the pies.

  3. Brown the pies in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

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.

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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

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

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

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + coconuttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,315 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the pastry crust.
Lard
Adds fat that makes the pastry tender and flaky.
Egg yolks
Thicken the filling and add richness.
Egg whites
Whipped to form a light, set topping that browns in the oven.
Sweet milk
Provides the liquid that sets with the eggs into a custard.
Fresh coconut
Adds moisture, flavor, and texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Spread the stiffened egg whites on top of the pies. Egg whites must be beaten until stiff so they hold their shape and bake into a light, set topping. Under-beaten whites will weep or sink into the filling.

Swap the coconut

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

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

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