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Cocoanut Cream

A chilled coconut cream made by mixing beaten egg whites with reduced milk, sweetened, and folded with grated coconut.

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

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 Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Boil the milk down to 1 quart.

Combine

  1. Slowly pour the hot milk over the beaten egg whites, stirring gently.

  2. Sweeten the mixture to your taste.

  3. Once cooled, add the grated coconut.

Freeze

  1. Place the mixture in a freezer to freeze.

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. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Coconut + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,742 recipes

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

Milk and sugar 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

Egg whites
Beaten into a foam that gives the cream its light, airy structure.
Milk
Reduced by boiling to concentrate it, giving the cream a rich, creamy body.
Grated coconut
Adds coconut flavor and a soft, fine texture to the cream.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture to the cook's taste.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot milk into the beaten egg whites. Pour slowly and stir gently so the milk blends in without deflating the foam. Beaten whites hold air only while the bubble walls stay intact, so harsh stirring or a rushed pour makes the cream dense.

Swap the coconut

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

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

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