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.
Make the batter
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.
Add the milk and flour alternately, mixing well.
Stir in the baking powder and grated coconut.
Beat the egg yolks.
Add the egg yolks to the mixture.
Bake
In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Gently fold the egg whites into the batter.
Pour the batter into greased jelly tins.
Bake until golden.
Ice and finish
For the icing, mix the reserved egg whites with powdered sugar and a little orange water or lemon juice.
Spread the icing between the layers and on top of the cake.
Return the cake to the oven for a few minutes to set.
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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Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,648 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Coconut + orangetop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together584 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Butter + coconuttop 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).
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
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
- Butter
- Creamed with sugar to trap air and give a tender, rich crumb.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps create a soft texture when creamed with butter.
- Eggs
- Yolks add richness and structure, while whipped whites add lift and airiness.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter, causing the cake to rise in the oven.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and helps form a smooth batter with the flour.
The step that matters
Fold in the egg whites gently. The whites were whipped to stiff peaks to trap air. Stirring them in roughly knocks that air out, which reduces the lift the cake gets in the oven and can make it dense.
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, sugar, egg, butter, coconut):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, sugar, egg, butter, coconut. 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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