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Dessert

Carrot Cocoanut Pie

A sweet pie made with carrot pulp, coconut, eggs, milk, and pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Coconut and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,294 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Carrot Cocoanut Pie

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 the carrot pulp

  1. Clean, dice, and stew the carrots in minimal water until tender.

  2. Rub the cooked carrots through a colander to measure 1 cup of carrot pulp.

Make and fill the pie

  1. In a bowl, combine the carrot pulp, shredded coconut, milk, beaten eggs, salt, and sugar.

  2. Pour the mixture into the pie crust.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) like a squash pie.

  2. Optionally, cover with meringue before serving.

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. Coconut + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,294 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

  5. Carrot + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together392 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Set the filling as they coagulate in the oven, giving a sliceable custard structure.
Milk
Provides liquid and milk solids that help the custard set and brown lightly.
Carrot pulp
Supplies moisture, body and natural sweetness to the filling.
Shredded coconut
Adds texture and fat, giving the filling a chewy, rich bite.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the surface brown at the edges.

The step that matters

Bake until just set. Egg proteins firm as they heat, so overbaking can make the custard curdle, weep liquid and turn rubbery. Remove it while the centre still wobbles slightly, as it will finish setting as it cools.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, coconut, milk, sugar, vanilla. 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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