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Dessert

Cocoanut Pudding

A baked pudding made with eggs, milk, grated coconut, bread, sugar, butter, raisins, and lemon peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cocoanut Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Beat the eggs with the milk.

  2. Add the grated coconut, grated bread, powdered sugar, melted butter, raisins, and grated lemon peel.

  3. Mix everything well together.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered dish.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until set.

  3. Dust sugar over the pudding and serve.

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.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the pudding its structure.
Milk
Provides liquid that the eggs set into a soft, custardy texture.
Grated bread
Absorbs liquid and adds body so the pudding holds its shape.
Melted butter
Adds richness and fat for a tender, moist crumb.
Raisins
Add pockets of sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Bake in a slow oven until set. Eggs set through gentle heat; a hot oven can curdle them and make the pudding grainy or watery. Baking only until just set keeps the custard tender and prevents it from turning rubbery.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, bread, sugar, butter, raisin. 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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