Skip to main content
Dessert

Cocoanut Sandwich

A two-layer cake sandwich with apricot preserve, coconut topping, and vanilla-flavored icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Vanilla and coconut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,294 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Cocoanut Sandwich

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the sponge

  1. Whisk together sugar, eggs, and boiling water for 10 minutes.

  2. Sift in flour and baking powder.

  3. Add vanilla essence and mix lightly.

  4. Divide the mixture into two buttered tins and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 10 minutes.

Fill and ice

  1. Spread apricot preserve on one layer.

  2. Add coconut on top.

  3. Place the second layer on top.

  4. Beat the egg white. Sift in icing sugar. Mix well. Flavor the icing with vanilla.

  5. Spread the icing over the cake.

  6. Sprinkle coconut on top.

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. Vanilla + coconuttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,294 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Vanilla + apricottop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together608 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  3. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Apricot + coconuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together100 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Vanilla + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Vanilla and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Whisked with sugar to trap air, giving the sponge its light structure.
Castor sugar
Whisked with the eggs to add sweetness and help hold air in the batter.
Flour
Sets the sponge's structure as the batter bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the sponge rises.
Egg white
Whipped into the icing mixture to make it light and fluffy.
Icing sugar
Sweetens the icing and thickens it when beaten with the egg white.

The step that matters

Whisk the eggs and sugar for 10 minutes. Whisking long enough traps air in the egg foam, which is what lifts the sponge. Under-whisked batter bakes up dense and flat.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Blueberryfits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Apricotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, vanilla, sugar, flour, 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.

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesApricot Ice CreamApricot Ice Cream26 recipesMixed Fruit SherbetMixed Fruit Sherbet6 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipes