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Dessert

Cocoanut Caramels

A sweet treat made from grated coconut, coconut milk, sugar, and cream of tartar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Cocoanut Caramels

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grate the coconut finely.

  2. Combine the coconut milk with enough water to make 1 pint.

Make the caramel

  1. Add the sugar to the mixture and bring to a boil.

  2. Once boiling, add the cream of tartar dissolved in a little water.

  3. Boil until it forms a soft ball when dropped in water.

  4. Stir in the grated coconut.

Finish and cut

  1. Remove from heat and beat until it starts to turn white; avoid overbeating to prevent crumbling.

  2. Pour into shallow pans and cut into squares when partly cool.

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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

  3. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Coconut + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,223 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

White sugar
Provides the sweetness and, when boiled, the firm caramel structure.
Coconut milk
Supplies fat and liquid that give the caramels a rich, creamy body.
Grated coconut
Adds coconut flavour and chewy texture to the set caramel.
Cream of tartar
Acidity that helps prevent sugar from crystallising, keeping the texture smooth.

The step that matters

Beating after boiling. Beating cools and agitates the sugar syrup so it turns white and sets. Overbeating lets sugar crystallise too much, making the caramels crumble instead of staying smooth and soft.

Swap the coconut

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, cream. 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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