Skip to main content
Dessert

Cocoanut Cream Candy

A sweet confection made from coconut, sugar, and coconut milk, cooked until thick and cut into squares.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Cocoanut Cream Candy

Why it works: Coconut and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,648 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cocoanut Cream Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the candy

  1. Combine the sugar and the milk from the coconut in a saucepan.

  2. Heat slowly until the sugar is melted.

  3. Boil for 5 minutes.

  4. Add the grated coconut and boil for an additional 10 minutes, stirring constantly to prevent burning.

Set and cut

  1. Pour the mixture onto buttered plates and cut into squares.

  2. Allow to harden for about 2 days.

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

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

  2. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  3. Coconut + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and milk 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

Granulated sugar
Provides sweetness and, as it cooks and cools, forms the firm, set body of the candy.
Grated coconut
Adds chewy texture, coconut flavor and moisture to the candy.
Coconut milk
Adds fat and moisture, making the candy creamy rather than brittle.

The step that matters

Stir constantly after adding the grated coconut. Once the coconut goes in, the sugar and milk solids can scorch quickly on the bottom of the pan. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly and keeps the candy from burning.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Coconutthe original

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

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes