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Dessert

Cocoanut Sherbet

A chilled coconut dessert made by extracting coconut milk, mixing with sugar and water, then freezing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Coconut and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,742 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Cocoanut Sherbet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the coconut

  1. Remove the milk from the coconuts and break them open.

  2. Take off the dark rind and grate the white meat.

  3. Pour 2 quarts of water over the grated coconut and let it sit for a while.

Make the sherbet

  1. Strain the mixture through a strong piece of muslin or use a fruit press to extract all the richness.

  2. Add the coconut milk and sugar to the strained mixture.

  3. Chill the mixture in a freezer until 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.

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Coconuts
Provide the white meat and milk that give the sherbet its flavour and richness.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the frozen mixture softer and smoother.
Water
Soaks the grated coconut to draw out flavour and milk for straining.

The step that matters

Straining the mixture. Squeezing the grated coconut firmly through muslin or a press extracts the most milk and richness. Leaving liquid behind weakens the flavour and body of the sherbet.

“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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