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Dessert

Coconut Drops

A sweet treat made from sugar, grated coconut, egg white, and salt, baked into drops.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Coconut Drops

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 coconut mixture

  1. Boil the sugar and grated coconut until it becomes sticky.

  2. When cool, add the stiffly beaten egg white and salt.

  3. Beat together and drop from a spoon onto buttered pans.

Bake and cool

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 15 minutes or until brown.

  2. Remove the pan from the oven and let cool before taking up the drops.

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. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Sugar + coconuttop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Coconut + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Dissolves and cooks with the coconut to a sticky mass that holds the drops together.
Grated coconut
Provides the main body and chewy texture of the drops.
Egg white
Adds structure and lift, binding the drops while helping them set in the oven.

The step that matters

Boil the sugar and coconut until sticky. Cooking the sugar to a sticky stage gives the mixture enough binding power to hold its shape. Undercooked mixture may spread or fail to hold the drops.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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