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Dessert

Stuffed Cocoanut Cake

A baked coconut cake with a coconut butter sauce and icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Stuffed Cocoanut Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the cake

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Beat in the eggs one at a time.

  3. Stir in the flour, cocoanut, and baking powder.

  4. Pour the batter into two greased and floured shallow tins.

  5. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 10 to 15 minutes.

Make the filling and assemble

  1. Melt 1 oz. of butter and mix with ½ oz. of flour to make a thick sauce.

  2. Add ½ cup of milk and boil until thick.

  3. Stir in 1 teaspoon of sugar and 2 oz. of cocoanut.

  4. Stick the two cake layers together with the sauce.

  5. Ice the top with white or pink glace icing.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, binding the batter as it sets in the oven.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure once heated, and thickens the sauce when mixed with butter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven, helping the cake rise.
Cocoanut
Adds moisture, flavour and chewy texture to the cake and the filling.

The step that matters

Boil the sauce until thick. Cooking the butter and flour with milk gelatinises the starch, so the sauce thickens. If it is not boiled long enough it stays thin and will not hold the cake layers together.

“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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