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Dessert

Cocoanut Cake

A sweet cake made with sugar, butter, flour, water, egg whites, baking powder, shredded coconut, sour cream, and optional almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Cocoanut Cake

Why it works: Coconut and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,093 recipes. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. The science ↓

Cocoanut Cake

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.

Make the cake

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

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the flour, water, egg whites, and baking powder; mix until smooth.

  4. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

Make the frosting and assemble

  1. For the frosting, mix the shredded coconut with enough sour cream to combine.

  2. Add sugar to the coconut mixture to taste and let it sit until the cake cools.

  3. Once the cake is cool, spread the coconut frosting between the layers.

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. Coconut + almondtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb.
Egg whites
Provide structure and lift, helping the batter set as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise.
Flour
Forms the cake's main structure once it is mixed with liquid and baked.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and tang to the coconut frosting, binding it together.
Shredded coconut
Gives the frosting its chewy texture and flavor.

The step that matters

Baking until a toothpick comes out clean. Underbaked cake stays wet and can sink in the center, while overbaking dries it out. A clean toothpick shows the crumb has set.

Swap the almond

The recipe marks almond as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, flour, egg, coconut, cream):

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Macadamia nutfits about as well
  3. Cashew nutfits less well
  4. Pistachiofits less well

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