Why it works: Butter and milk 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 Pie
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 cake
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream together the butter and 1½ cups of sugar.
Add the egg yolks, whole egg, and sweet milk, and mix well.
Stir in the baking soda, cream of tartar, and flour until combined.
Bake in thin pans until golden.
Make the coconut filling
Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks, then gradually add 1 cup of sugar.
Fold in the desiccated coconut.
Assemble
Layer the coconut mixture between the baked layers of cake.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,648 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,467 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake layers together.
- Butter
- Adds richness and helps give the cake a tender crumb.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter, add richness, and whipped whites lighten the filling.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps it brown as it bakes.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to lift and lighten the cake.
- Desiccated coconut
- Adds coconut flavour and a chewy texture to the filling.
The step that matters
Fold in the coconut gently. The beaten egg whites hold air that gives the filling its lightness. Stirring vigorously deflates the foam, leaving a dense, heavy filling.
Swap the coconut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, milk, cream, flour):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutthe original
- Figfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, milk, cream, 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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