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Dessert

Cocoanut Pie

A custard-style pie made with coconut, milk, eggs, butter, sugar, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Cocoanut Pie

Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Cocoanut Pie

two large pies

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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and sugar together.

  2. Add the flour to the yolk mixture and mix well.

  3. In a saucepan, combine the grated coconut, milk, and the yolk mixture.

  4. Cook over medium heat until thickened, stirring constantly.

  5. Remove from heat and fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into pie crusts to make two large pies.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until set and lightly browned.

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.

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.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Coconut + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Coconut + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the filling as they set, and whipped whites lighten its texture.
Flour
Starch thickens the mixture so it holds its shape when set.
Milk
Provides the liquid base and moisture for the custard filling.
Grated coconut
Adds the main coconut flavor and a soft, textured body to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the top brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Thickening the filling on the stove. Egg yolks can curdle or scorch over direct heat, so cooking over medium heat while stirring constantly keeps the custard smooth as the starch and egg proteins set.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, butter, sugar, flour. 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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