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Dessert

Cocoanut Pie

A sweet pie with coconut, lemon, sugar, eggs, and coconut milk baked in a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Cocoanut Pie

Why it works: Coconut and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,233 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Cocoanut Pie

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

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

  2. Bake a pie crust as you would for any pie.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and egg yolks.

  2. Add the grated coconut, lemon juice, and water or coconut milk.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites last.

  4. Pour the mixture into the prepared pie crust.

Bake

  1. Bake until set, about 30-40 minutes.

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 + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Coconut + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Eggs
Egg yolks enrich and set the custard, while beaten whites lighten its texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps cream with the yolks for a smooth base.
Grated coconut
Provides the main coconut flavor and moist, chewy body to the filling.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and balances the coconut.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites last. Folding gently keeps the whipped egg whites airy; stirring them vigorously deflates the foam and leaves a denser, less light pie.

Swap the coconut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, sugar, egg):

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar, 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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