Name: Cocoanut Cream Paste
Ingredients: 1 cup water; 2 tablespoons sugar; 1 pound white flour; 2-3 eggs; grated cocoanut; 1 tablespoon cocoanut oil; flavoring

Why it works: Sugar and flour 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 Cream Paste

Ingredients

Directions

In a saucepan, warm 1 cup of water and 2 tablespoons of sugar until the sugar dissolves.
Set aside and add 1 pound of white flour, beating with a spoon for 5 minutes until thick.
Add 2-3 eggs one at a time, along with the grated coconut and 1 tablespoon of coconut oil, plus flavoring.
Use this paste for coconut cream cake.

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.

Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked 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

What each ingredient does

White flour: Provides the bulk and structure that thickens the paste as it is beaten.
Eggs: Add structure and richness, binding the paste as they are beaten in one at a time.
Grated coconut: Adds coconut flavor and moisture with a tender, chewy texture.
Coconut oil: Adds fat, which contributes richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the paste.

“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.