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Cocoanut Ice

A sweet coconut dessert made by boiling milk, sugar, and coconut, then layering colored and uncolored mixtures.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Cocoanut Ice

Why it works: Coconut and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,648 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cocoanut Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the coconut mixture

  1. In a saucepan, combine milk and sugar, and bring to a boil.

  2. Add the desiccated coconut and boil for 12 minutes.

  3. Divide the mixture into separate bowls.

Color and layer

  1. Color one bowl with carmine.

  2. Beat the colored mixture until it thickens slightly.

  3. Pour the white mixture onto a buttered dish.

  4. Layer the pink mixture 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.

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. Coconut + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Sugar + coconuttop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and milk 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

Granulated sugar
Provides sweetness and, once boiled, helps the mixture set firm as it cools.
Desiccated coconut
Gives the confection its chewy texture and coconut flavor, and adds bulk.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, producing a creamier, softer set.

The step that matters

Beating the colored mixture until it thickens slightly. Beating cools and stiffens the sugar mixture so it holds its layer. Beat too little and the pink layer may blend into the white; beat too long and it sets too firm to pour and level.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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