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Dessert

Cocoanut Cream Pie

A custard pie made with coconut, corn starch, eggs, butter, cream, milk, and sugar, baked in pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 Cream Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

  2. Line two pie plates with pastry.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, combine milk and cream and bring to a boil.

  2. Mix corn starch with cold water and add to the boiling milk mixture.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the butter. Let cool completely.

  4. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and sugar together, then mix in the cocoanut.

  5. Fold this mixture into the stiffly beaten egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Divide the filling into the prepared pie plates and bake for 30 minutes.

  2. Serve hot.

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

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

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

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the filling and whites add lightness and structure when set by heat.
Corn starch
Swells in hot liquid and thickens the milk and cream into a sliceable custard.
Cream
Adds richness and body, giving the filling a smooth, soft texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps balance the richness of the dairy and egg.
Baker's shredded cocoanut
Adds coconut flavor and a chewy texture throughout the filling.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel in the finished filling.

The step that matters

Adding the cornstarch mixture to the boiling milk. Cornstarch only thickens when hot liquid is stirred while it boils. Adding it without thorough stirring can leave lumps or a runny filling that will not set properly.

“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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