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 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare the batter
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a mixing bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.
Add the beaten eggs and mix well.
Stir in the milk.
Sift together the flour and baking powder, then gradually add to the mixture.
Fold in the shredded coconut.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
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 + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Coconut + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,648 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Coconut + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,467 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender crumb when creamed with butter.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and tenderness, and traps air when creamed with sugar.
- Eggs
- Provide structure and binding, helping the batter hold together as it sets.
- All-purpose flour
- Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
- Shredded coconut
- Adds texture and a distinct coconut flavor to the cake.
The step that matters
Gradually adding the flour and baking powder. Adding the dry ingredients gradually and folding gently keeps the batter smooth and limits gluten development, which would otherwise make the cake tough.
Swap the coconut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, milk, butter, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits about as well
- Coconutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, milk, butter, 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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