Why it works: Sugar and coconut are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,742 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Cocoanut Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the candy
Boil sugar and water until it crisps in water.
Remove from heat and stir until it creams.
Shape the cakes
Once the candy is beaten to a cream, stir in the grated coconut.
Shape into good-sized but thin cakes.
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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Sugar + coconuttop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,742 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Forms the candy base that sets into a firm, sweet structure holding the coconut.
- Grated coconut
- Provides the main flavor and body of the cakes.
The step that matters
Boil the sugar and water until it crisps in water. Sugar syrup must reach the right concentration to form a candy that sets firm when cooled. Too little cooking leaves it runny and the cakes will not hold their shape, while overcooking makes them hard and brittle.
“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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