Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
A Much Admired Cocoa-nut Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the batter
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a large bowl, mix together the eggs, sugar, flour, and salt. Add the baking powder and mix well.
Pour in the boiling water and stir until combined.
Divide the batter into three or four jelly-cake tins and bake until golden.
Ice and finish
For the icing, beat the egg white and gradually add sugar until stiff.
Spread the icing over the cooled cakes and sprinkle coconut on each layer.
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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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + coconuttop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,315 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + coconuttop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,742 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
- Provide structure and richness as they set in the batter.
- Flour
- Forms the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps the batter brown as it bakes.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
- Egg white
- Whipped with sugar to form a stiff, sweet icing that holds its shape.
The step that matters
Pour in the boiling water and stir until combined. Boiling water loosens the batter and helps the cake stay moist and tender. Stir only until combined, because overmixing after the flour and leavening are in can make the crumb tough.
Swap the coconut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, flour):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Lemonfits better
- Coconutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour. 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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