Skip to main content
Dessert

Cocoanut Cream Pie

A pie with a coconut cream filling baked in a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Cream Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the filling

  1. Scald the milk over steam.

  2. Add sugar, coconut, and butter to the milk.

  3. Mix flour and salt with a little cold milk, then add the flour mixture to the milk mixture.

  4. Gently stir in the beaten egg whites.

Bake the crust

  1. Prick the pie crust with a fork.

  2. Bake the pie crust at 400°F (200°C).

Assemble and finish

  1. Once both the filling and crust are cold, spread the filling over the crust.

  2. Beat the egg whites.

  3. Add 8 teaspoons of powdered sugar to the beaten egg whites.

  4. Spread this mixture over the top.

  5. Sprinkle 1/4 cup of coconut over the top and brown lightly.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard filling, setting into a creamy texture.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture so the filling holds its shape when cooled.
Egg whites
Add structure and lightness to the filling and form the meringue topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the meringue topping become glossy and stable.
Coconut (in the method)
Adds coconut flavor and texture to the filling and the browned topping.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the filling for a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Let the filling and crust cool completely before spreading. Spreading warm filling over the crust or topping it while hot can melt the topping and make the filling runny or weepy as the starch in the flour is still setting.

“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

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes