Skip to main content
Dessert

Cocoanut Pudding

A sweet pudding made with milk, eggs, sugar, butter, and grated coconut.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter 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 Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. In a saucepan, combine the butter and sugar over medium heat until melted and creamy.

  2. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl, then add them to the mixture.

  3. Stir in the milk and grated coconut.

  4. Cook until well combined, then remove from heat.

Chill and serve

  1. Chill before serving.

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

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

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

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

  3. Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 body and structure.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy mouthfeel to the mixture.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps form a creamy base with the butter.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs set into a soft pudding.
Coconut
Adds coconut flavour and moisture to the pudding.

The step that matters

Cook until well combined, then remove from heat. Eggs thicken as they heat but can scramble if overheated. Stop once the mixture is combined and thickened, since it will firm further as it cools and chills.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Coconutthe original
  4. Peachfits about as well

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

More coconut pudding recipes

Baked 5Rum 4Tapioca 4Orange 3 See all 266 →

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes