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 shells
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Bake two pie shells in a deep pie pan.
Make the filling
In a saucepan, combine milk, sugar, and shredded coconut.
Bring the mixture to a boil.
In a small bowl, mix flour with enough water to make a thin batter.
Add the flour mixture to the boiling milk mixture and cook until thickened.
Remove the mixture from heat.
Fold in the beaten egg whites.
Fill and chill
Fill the baked pie shells with the mixture.
Chill the filled pies before serving.
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.
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Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,648 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Coconut + flourtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,315 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk and flour 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
- Milk
- Provides the liquid base that thickens into a creamy custard filling.
- All-purpose flour
- Thickens the boiling milk mixture so the filling holds its shape when cut.
- Egg whites
- Folded in at the end to lighten the filling and add structure.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the filling and helps balance the richness of the coconut and milk.
- Shredded coconut
- Adds coconut flavor and chewy texture to the filling.
The step that matters
Add the flour mixture to the boiling milk mixture. Starch in flour needs heat and constant stirring to swell and thicken evenly. Adding it to a boil and cooking until thickened prevents a thin or lumpy filling.
Swap the coconut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, flour, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Coconutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, flour, egg. 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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