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Dessert

Cocoanut Creams

A coconut confection made by mixing grated coconut with French candy, sweetened with confectioners' sugar, formed into balls, and coated in melted French cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Coconut and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,294 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Cocoanut Creams

Ingredients

Directions

Make the centers

  1. In a bowl, combine grated coconut and French candy.

  2. Mix with your hands until well combined.

  3. If the mixture is too soft, add confectioners' sugar to stiffen.

  4. Form the mixture into balls the size of hazelnuts.

Coat the balls

  1. Dip the balls twice in melted French cream, flavoring it with vanilla if desired.

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 + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,294 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Grated coconut
Provides the main texture and coconut flavor of the filling.
Confectioners' sugar
Absorbs moisture and stiffens a soft mixture so the balls hold their shape.

The step that matters

Adjusting the softness of the mixture. If the mixture is too soft, the balls will not hold their shape. Confectioners' sugar absorbs moisture and firms the mixture, so add it gradually until the mixture can be rolled into balls.

“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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