Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Cocoanut Ice
Ingredients
Directions
Combine sugar and cream of tartar in water.
Bring to a boil and cook for 10 minutes.
Stir in the coconut and boil for an additional 30 seconds.
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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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Coconut + creamtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,223 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + coconuttop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,742 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Loaf sugar
- Provides sweetness and, once boiled into syrup, the body that sets the coconut mass.
- Desiccated coconut
- Supplies the bulk, flavour and chewy texture of the finished confection.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidity that helps prevent the sugar syrup from crystallising too firmly.
The step that matters
Cooking the sugar syrup for 10 minutes. Sugar syrup sets according to how far its water has evaporated and how concentrated the sugar becomes. Boiling too briefly leaves it soft and sticky, while boiling too long makes it hard, so timing at the boil controls the final texture of the ice.
Swap the coconut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Strawberryfits better
- Raspberryfits better
- Coconutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream. 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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