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Dessert

Cocoa-nut Puddings, in Paper Cases

A coconut pudding made with butter, sugar, water, cocoa-nut, citron, lemon, eggs, baked in paper cases.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cocoa work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 548 recipes. Both carry delta-undecalactone, which smells coconut, creamy. The science ↓

Cocoa-nut Puddings, in Paper Cases

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.

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter with sugar and water in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Boil for 2 minutes.

  3. Let cool.

Make the batter

  1. Mix in the grated cocoa-nut, chopped citron, lemon juice, and lemon rind.

  2. Beat the egg yolks separately.

  3. Add the beaten yolks to the mixture.

  4. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  5. Fold the stiff egg whites into the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill small paper cases with the batter.

  2. Bake immediately at 350°F (175°C) until set.

  3. Serve hot or cold.

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. Butter + cocoatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together548 recipes

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

  2. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites give it lightness and structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and helps give the pudding its tender, moist texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a soft, tender crumb.
Grated cocoa-nut
Supplies the main coconut flavour and moisture to the pudding.

The step that matters

Fold the stiff egg whites into the mixture. Folding gently keeps the air beaten into the whites, which lifts the batter. Stirring vigorously deflates the foam and leaves a denser pudding.

Swap the cocoa

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

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

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