Skip to main content
Dessert

Cocoanut Cake

A baked coconut cake made with eggs, sugar, flour, gelatin, coconut, cream, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Cocoanut Cake

Why it works: Coconut and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,294 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Cocoanut Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the sponge

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Beat the egg whites and yolks separately.

  3. Mix the eggs together and gradually add the sugar.

  4. Beat the mixture for 10 minutes.

  5. Gently stir in the flour without beating.

  6. Pour the batter into jelly cake tins and bake until golden.

Make the coconut cream

  1. Soak the gelatin in warm water for 1 hour until dissolved.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the cream until frothy.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  4. Stir the dissolved gelatin into the whipped cream.

  5. Add the grated coconut, sugar to taste, and vanilla extract.

  6. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

Assemble

  1. Spread the mixture between the cake layers and on top, then garnish with grated coconut.

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 + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,294 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 lift when beaten into the sponge batter.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake crumb once baked.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the batter hold its beaten air.
Gelatine
Sets the cream filling so it holds its shape when sliced.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and moisture to the filling.
Grated coconut
Adds coconut flavour and texture to the filling and topping.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites gently. Deflating the whipped egg whites removes the air that gives the filling its lightness, so folding must be gentle and quick.

Swap the coconut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, flour, cream, vanilla):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Blueberryfits about as well
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour, cream, vanilla. 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.

More coconut cake recipes

Chocolate 6Filling 4Lemon 4 See all 345 →

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes