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Dessert

Cocoanut Pie

A coconut pie with a buttery filling and meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Cocoanut Pie

Why it works: Milk and butter 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 Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Mix grated coconut and flour with milk or water in a saucepan.

  2. Place the mixture on the stove and stir until thickened.

  3. Remove from heat.

  4. Add butter while warm.

  5. Mix in salt, egg yolks, and sugar, beating until combined.

  6. Fill the pie crust with the mixture.

Bake and top

  1. Bake the pie.

  2. Beat egg whites with powdered sugar until stiff peaks form.

  3. Spread the egg white mixture on top of the pie.

  4. Return the pie to the oven to brown slightly.

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

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

  2. Coconut + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

  3. Coconut + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Grated coconut
Provides the main body and chewy coconut flavour of the filling.
Flour
Thickens the milk or water mixture as it heats, giving the filling body.
Egg yolks
Enrich and help set the filling, adding richness and smoothness.
Egg whites
Whipped with sugar to form a stable meringue topping that browns in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the filling.

The step that matters

Stirring until thickened. Flour needs to be stirred over heat until the mixture thickens, because starch only thickens fully once heated. Stopping too early leaves a thin filling that may run when cut.

Swap the coconut

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

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

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