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Dessert

Chess Cakes

A coconut cake made by boiling sugar and water, adding grated coconut, butter, egg yolks, then baking in pastry-lined pans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Coconut and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chess Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Boil the sugar in water for 15 minutes.

  2. Stir in the grated coconut and boil for another 15 minutes.

  3. While warm, stir in the butter until melted.

  4. Add the beaten egg yolks and mix well.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into lined patty pans and bake.

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. Coconut + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Coconut + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Coconut
Provides the main flavour and bulk, and its fat keeps the filling moist.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and, boiled with water, helps bind it into a thick mixture.
Egg yolks
Add richness and, as they set on baking, help hold the filling together.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks. Stirring the yolks into a hot mixture can scramble them. Let the filling cool slightly while warm enough to melt the butter, then mix the yolks in well so the filling bakes smooth.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Coconutthe original

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

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