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Dessert

Cocoanut Pie

A sweet coconut pie made with grated coconut, sugar, butter, rose water, nutmeg, and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Cocoanut Pie

Why it works: Coconut and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 411 recipes. Both carry beta-pinene, which smells pine, resin. The science ↓

Cocoanut Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Cream the butter and sugar until very light.

  2. Add the rose water and mix well.

  3. Gently fold in the grated coconut.

  4. Whip the egg whites until stiff and carefully fold them into the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into pie shells and bake immediately.

  2. Serve cold, dusted with powdered sugar.

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 + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together411 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-pinene (pine, resin).

  2. Coconut + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  3. Rose + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the filling a rich, tender body.
White sugar
Creams with the butter for lightness and adds sweetness.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff foam that lightens the filling and helps it set as it bakes.
Grated coconut
Adds bulk, moisture and coconut flavour to the filling.
Rose water
Adds a delicate floral aroma to the filling.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Stiff egg whites hold air only if folded in gently. Overmixing deflates the foam, leaving a dense pie that rises less and sets unevenly in the oven.

Swap the coconut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, rose, nutmeg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, rose, nutmeg. 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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