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Dessert

Cocoanut Pudding

A coconut pudding baked in puff pastry with sugar, eggs, butter, and brandy or wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Coconut and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cocoanut Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Grate the coconuts a day in advance and let them dry.

Make the filling

  1. Beat the sugar, egg yolks, and egg whites in a bowl until very light.

  2. Add the butter to the mixture.

  3. Just before baking, mix in the grated coconut and season with brandy or wine.

Bake

  1. Bake in puff pastry at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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 + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  2. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Coconuts
Provide the main bulk and sweet coconut flavour of the filling.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help the filling set as it bakes.
Egg whites
Beaten in to lighten the mixture and add structure during baking.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it brown as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer, smoother texture.

The step that matters

Adding the coconut just before baking. Grated coconut left standing in a wet, sugary mixture can soften and lose its texture, and the egg mixture can thin as it sits. Mixing it in right before baking keeps the filling thick and the coconut distinct.

Swap the coconut

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

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

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