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Dessert

Cocoanut Cup Cake

A coconut cake baked in small square pans, made with sugar, butter, milk, lemon extract, nutmeg, eggs, and grated coconut.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Cocoanut Cup Cake

Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Cocoanut Cup Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the milk, lemon extract, grated nutmeg, and beaten eggs; mix well.

  4. Stir in the grated coconut.

  5. Add enough sifted flour to create a rather stiff batter.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter square tin pans and line them with white paper.

  2. Pour the batter into the pans, filling them about an inch deep.

  3. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  4. Once cooled, cut the cake into small squares or diamonds.

  5. Optionally, frost with a thin icing for added flavor.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Nutmeg + coconuttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together411 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-pinene (pine, resin).

  4. Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
Sifted wheat flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown lightly while baking.
Grated coconut
Adds moisture and a distinct coconut flavor and chew to the crumb.

The step that matters

Adding the flour. Flour should be added until the batter is rather stiff, not thin. Too much flour makes the cake dense and dry, while too little leaves it weak and fragile once baked.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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