Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Cocoanut Wafers
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.
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Beat the egg yolks and add the sugar.
Mix in the coconut and water.
Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites, salt, and rose water.
Gradually add the flour and mix until combined.
Let the mixture stand for 30 minutes in a cool place.
Roll out to ¼ inch thick and cut into desired shapes.
Bake until lightly golden.
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.
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + coconuttop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,315 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Coconut + rosetop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together185 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
Swap the coconut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, egg, rose):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Lemonfits better
- Coconutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, egg, rose. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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