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Dessert

Cocoa-nut Spongecakes

A light sponge cake made with grated coconut, egg yolks, sugar, flour, and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cocoa-nut Spongecakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Remove the brown skin from the cocoa-nut and grate the white part finely.

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and gradually stir in the sugar, salt, and lemon rind until well mixed. Beat the mixture for 15 minutes, then add the flour and grated cocoa-nut.

Make the batter

  1. Fold in the whisked egg whites gently until combined.

  2. Line square tins with buttered paper and pour in the mixture.

Bake

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 30 minutes without opening the door.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Cocoa + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together548 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-undecalactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Egg whites
Whisked to firm peaks, they trap air that lifts the cake as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Add richness and emulsify with the sugar to give the batter body.
Flour
Provides the starch and structure that hold the sponge once baked.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the yolks whip into a stable, airy base.
Cocoa-nut
Adds moisture, fat and coconut flavour to the sponge.

The step that matters

Fold in the whisked egg whites gently. Stiff whites hold the air that makes the sponge rise. Vigorous stirring knocks that air out, leaving a dense, flat cake.

Swap the cocoa

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, lemon, flour, 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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