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Cocoa-nut Cream

A sweet cream made from cocoa-nuts, lemon rind, sugar, cinnamon, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and arrowroot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 553 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Cocoa-nut Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. In a saucepan, combine cold spring water, lemon rind, sugar, cinnamon, and sliced cocoa-nut.

  2. Boil gently until it thickens into a syrup.

Make the cream

  1. Add the milk of the cocoa-nuts, thickened with cornflour or arrowroot.

  2. Boil together for 1-2 minutes, then add cream and strain.

  3. Stir until cold, then mix in brandy and vanilla essence just 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. Lemon + arrowroottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Cinnamon + arrowroottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together166 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Cocoa-nut milk
Provides the main coconut flavour and the creamy liquid base of the dish.
Cornflour or arrowroot
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, set cream when boiled.
Cream
Adds richness and a softer, fuller mouthfeel to the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and balances the flavours.

The step that matters

Thickening with cornflour or arrowroot. Starch only thickens properly when boiled, and it must be fully cooked to avoid a raw, pasty taste. Boiling for the stated 1-2 minutes gives a smooth texture, while too little heat leaves the cream thin.

Swap the cocoa

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, sugar, cinnamon, milk, nuts, arrowroot, cream):

  1. Pistachiofits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar, cinnamon, milk, nuts, arrowroot, cream. 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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