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Cocoanut Pudding

A baked coconut pudding made with bread crumbs, coconut, eggs, milk, sugar, butter, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the pudding base

  1. In a saucepan, combine bread crumbs, coconut, milk, salt, and sugar.

  2. Heat the mixture over medium heat until it comes to a boil.

  3. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl, then add them to the mixture and stir well.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered baking dish.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

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. Coconut + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set as it bakes.
Bread crumbs
Add body and soak up the milk to give the pudding structure.
Shredded coconut
Adds flavor and a chewy texture to the pudding.
Milk
Provides moisture and softens the bread crumbs into a custard-like base.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Heating the mixture to a boil before adding the eggs. Eggs can scramble if they meet very hot liquid too quickly. Stirring the eggs in after the base has been heated, and mixing well, helps them blend smoothly instead of curdling.

Swap the coconut

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

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

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

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