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Dessert

Cocoanut Pudding

A sweet pudding made by soaking stale bread in boiling water, mixing with coconut, custard, flour, nutmeg, and sugar, then baking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cocoanut Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bread

  1. Soak stale bread in boiling water until well soaked.

  2. Use a fork to break up any lumps of bread.

  3. Add ½ cup grated coconut to the soaked bread.

Make the custard and bake

  1. In a separate bowl, whisk together 1 quart milk and 4 eggs to make a custard.

  2. Add flour, nutmeg, and white sugar to taste.

  3. Pour the custard over the bread mixture and bake immediately.

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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cocoa + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Bread + cocoatop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together103 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread
Forms the body of the pudding and soaks up the custard as it bakes.
Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the pudding its firm, sliceable structure.
Milk
Makes the custard liquid that bakes into a soft, creamy texture.
Grated coconut
Adds coconut flavor and a slightly chewy texture to the pudding.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake immediately after pouring the custard. Once the custard soaks into the bread, it begins to set and the bread can become soggy or uneven if it waits. Baking right away keeps the texture even and the custard properly set through the middle.

Swap the cocoa

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, egg, flour, nutmeg, sugar):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Milletfits better
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, egg, flour, nutmeg, sugar. 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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