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Dessert

Cocoanut Puffs

A sweet treat made from beaten egg whites, sugar, cornstarch, coconut, and vanilla, baked into light puffs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Cocoanut Puffs

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the mixture

  1. Beat the egg whites until very light and stiff.

  2. Dissolve the cornstarch in a small amount of water and stir it into the egg whites and sugar.

  3. Place the mixture in a double boiler and cook over boiling water for 20‑25 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking.

Shape and bake

  1. Add enough shredded coconut so that it holds its shape when dropped onto buttered baking sheets.

  2. Flavor with vanilla extract, drop spoonfuls onto the sheets, and bake at 350 °F (175 °C) for 8‑10 minutes.

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

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

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + coconuttop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,742 recipes

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

  5. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

Egg whites
Whipped into a light foam that gives the puffs their airy structure.
White sugar
Sweetens the puffs and helps stabilize the whipped egg white foam.
Cornstarch
Thickens the mixture when heated, so it can hold its shape.
Shredded coconut
Adds body, chewy texture and coconut flavor to the puffs.

The step that matters

Cooking the mixture over boiling water. Cornstarch must be heated long enough to thicken the mixture. Stirring occasionally keeps it from sticking and scorching on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Blueberryfits better
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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