Why it works: Milk and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Cokernut Ice
Ingredients
Directions
Combine 1 lb of sugar and 1 cup of milk in a saucepan. Heat gradually and boil quickly for 8 minutes.
Add ½ lb of coconut and pour the mixture into a tin dusted with caster sugar. Spread evenly.
Before the mixture cools completely, prepare the remaining ½ lb of coconut, adding the cochineal before mixing.
Cut into pieces before it is fully cold.
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.
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
- Dessicated cokernut
- Provides the bulk and chewy texture of the set confection.
- Lump sugar
- Sweetens the mixture and, once boiled and cooled, sets into a firm mass.
- Milk
- Dissolves the sugar and adds moisture for the boiled syrup.
- Cochineal
- Colours the second portion of coconut, giving the confection its pink contrast.
The step that matters
Cut before it is fully cold. Cut the mixture while it is still slightly warm but firm enough to hold its shape. As sugar syrup cools it crystallises and sets, so waiting too long makes it brittle and hard to cut, while cutting too early lets the soft mass smear.
“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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