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Cocoanut Cheese Cakes

A coconut-based custard baked in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Cocoanut Cheese Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Dissolve the sugar in the water in a saucepan.

  2. Add the grated coconut and boil for a few minutes over low heat.

  3. Let the mixture cool, then stir in the beaten egg yolks and the egg white.

Line and bake

  1. Line tins with puff pastry and pour the mixture into them.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until set.

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. Coconut + sugartop 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

Eggs
Egg yolks and white thicken and set the filling as it bakes, giving it a firm, sliceable body.
Grated coconut
Provides the main bulk, moisture and flavour of the filling.
Lump sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it hold a soft, syrupy texture before baking.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky shell that holds the filling and bakes to a crisp, golden base.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the eggs. Egg proteins begin to set at around 160°F, so stirring beaten eggs into a hot mixture can scramble them and leave lumps. Cooling first lets the eggs blend in smoothly and set evenly in the oven.

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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