Skip to main content
Dessert

Cocoa-nut Sauce

A sauce made from grated coconut, water, sugar, thick cream, and beaten egg yolk.

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

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Cocoa-nut Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grate the white part of the cocoa-nut finely.

  2. Boil the grated cocoa-nut gently in water with dissolved sugar, stirring well.

  3. Press the mixture through a sieve.

Finish the sauce

  1. Add thick cream and the beaten egg yolk to the mixture.

  2. Heat the mixture for 1-2 minutes, but do not let it boil after adding the egg.

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

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

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Cocoa + creamtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together304 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Cocoa + sugartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together956 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cocoa-nut
Provides the main flavour and body of the sauce.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and helps it dissolve into the liquid.
Thick cream
Adds fat for a rich, smooth texture.
Egg yolk
Thickens the sauce as it gently heats, giving it body.

The step that matters

Do not let the sauce boil after adding the egg. Egg yolk proteins set and curdle when overheated, which turns a smooth sauce grainy. Heating gently for only 1-2 minutes keeps it thick and silky.

Swap the cocoa

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, egg. 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.

You might also like

Coconut PuddingCoconut Pudding26 recipesCoconut CakeCoconut Cake17 recipesCocoa Nut CandyCocoa Nut Candy11 recipesCocoa Nut PuddingCocoa Nut Pudding9 recipes