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Dessert

Cocoanut Pie

A pie made with grated coconut, milk, sugar, butter, cracker, nutmeg, wine, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the coconut

  1. Remove the brown skin from the coconut and grate the white part.

  2. Simmer the grated coconut in 4 cups of milk for 15 minutes.

Make the filling

  1. Remove from heat and mix in 4 tablespoons of sugar, 2 tablespoons of melted butter, the rolled cracker, and grated nutmeg.

  2. Let the mixture cool, then add ⅓ cup of wine and 5 beaten eggs.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into pie plates lined with pastry and bake at 400°F (200°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.

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. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 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

Coconut (in the method)
Provides the main flavour and body of the filling.
Milk
Softens the grated coconut and gives the filling a creamy, custard-like base.
Eggs
Set during baking to bind the filling into a sliceable pie.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling brown lightly in the oven.
Melted butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the eggs. Eggs added to a very hot mixture can begin to scramble or cook unevenly, which leaves the filling grainy instead of smooth before it ever reaches the oven.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Tarragonfits less well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, butter, wine, 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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