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Cocoanut Ice

A chilled coconut dessert made with sugar, milk, desiccated coconut, and cochineal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Cocoanut Ice

Why it works: Milk and coconut are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,648 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cocoanut Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Combine the sugar and milk in a saucepan.

  2. Boil the mixture for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the desiccated coconut until well combined.

Layer and set

  1. Grease a tin.

  2. Pour half of the mixture into the tin.

  3. Add the cochineal to the remaining mixture.

  4. Pour the cochineal mixture on top of the first layer.

  5. Place in a cool area to set.

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. Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Sugar + coconuttop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Granulated sugar
Dissolves into the milk and sets into the firm, sweet body of the confection.
Milk
Dissolves the sugar and, with boiling, thickens into a mixture that holds the coconut together.
Desiccated coconut
Adds bulk, chewy texture and coconut flavour to the set mixture.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Boiling concentrates the sugar and drives off water so the mixture can set firm when cooled. Stirring prevents the sugar and milk from scorching on the base of the pan, which would give a burnt flavour and uneven colour.

Swap the coconut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk. 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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