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Cocoanut Pie

A sweet pie made with desiccated coconut, eggs, butter, sugar, and milk.

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

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 Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the desiccated coconut in 1½ cups of milk.

  2. Mix in the eggs, butter, and sugar until well combined.

  3. Pour the mixture into a pie crust.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until set and lightly golden.

  2. Top with meringue if desired.

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

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

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

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

  3. Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Cocoa + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together548 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-undecalactone (coconut, creamy).

  5. Walnut + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,236 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Desiccated coconut
Provides the main flavour and a chewy, moist texture in the filling.
Eggs
Set the custard-like filling as they cook, giving it structure.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing to a tender texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling brown lightly in the oven.
Milk
Moistens the coconut and forms the liquid base of the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until set and lightly golden. Egg-based fillings continue to firm as they cool, so underbaking leaves a runny centre, while overbaking can make the custard curdle or weep. Watch for a centre that barely wobbles.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pecansfits better
  3. Nutsfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cocoa, egg, butter, sugar, milk. 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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