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Dessert

Almond Cocoanut Cake

A layered cake with almond and coconut flavors, topped with a sugar glaze and coconut shavings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Almond Cocoanut Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cake

  1. Cream the butter and powdered sugar together.

  2. Add the milk, then sift in the flour and baking powder.

  3. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites and almond extract.

  4. Bake in layers until golden.

Make the frosting

  1. For the frosting, boil the sugar and water until it spins a thread.

  2. Slowly pour the syrup onto the stiffly beaten egg whites while beating constantly.

  3. Add the almond extract and continue beating until the frosting reaches a spreadable consistency.

Assemble and decorate

  1. Pour the frosting over the layers and sides of the cake.

  2. Sprinkle the entire surface with shredded coconut and decorate with halves of blanched almonds around the edge.

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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
Stiffly beaten whites trap air, giving the cake a light, airy structure.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the layers rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the frosting and, boiled to a syrup, sets the frosting's soft, spreadable body.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot syrup into the egg whites. The syrup must be poured slowly while beating constantly. Pouring too fast or without beating can deflate the whites or cook them unevenly, so the frosting loses its volume and smoothness.

“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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