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Dessert

Cocoanut Pound Cake

A moist pound cake flavored with coconut and lemon, baked in a standard oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cocoanut Pound Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the softened butter in a large bowl.

  2. Gradually add the sifted flour and powdered sugar, mixing well.

  3. Stir in the baking powder, salt, grated lemon peel, coconut, beaten eggs, and milk until thoroughly combined.

Prepare the tins

  1. Butter the cake tins and line them with buttered paper.

  2. Pour the batter into the tins to a depth of 1½ inches.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

  2. Spread icing over the cakes.

  3. Return them to the oven briefly to dry the icing.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Lemon + coconuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the cake and contributes to its fine, soft texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid so the batter combines into a smooth mixture.

The step that matters

Creaming the butter. Beating softened butter with sugar traps air bubbles that expand in the oven. Cold or melted butter will not hold this air, leading to a denser cake.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, sugar, coconut, egg, milk. 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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