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Dessert

Cocoanut Pie

A sweet pie with coconut filling made from butter, sugar, rose water, sherry, grated coconut, and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Cocoanut Pie

Why it works: Butter and coconut 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 ↓

Cocoanut Pie

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 filling

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl.

  2. Add the rose water and sherry, mixing well.

  3. Gently fold in the grated coconut.

  4. Whip the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the filling into pie plates lined with puff pastry.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  2. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Butter + eggtop 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. Rose + coconuttop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together185 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and tenderness through fat, helping the filling feel smooth.
Sugar
Creams with the butter and adds sweetness and a softer crumb.
Grated coconut
Provides chewy texture and coconut flavour throughout the filling.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff foam, they lighten the filling and help it set when baked.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Overmixing deflates the whipped foam, so the filling loses its lightness and bakes up dense. Fold gently so the air stays trapped.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raspberryfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, rose, sherry, 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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