Name: Cocoanut Buns
Ingredients: ¼ pound butter, softened; ¼ pound sugar; 2 eggs; ¼ pound desiccated coconut; ½ cup milk; ¼ teaspoon ground ginger; ¾ pound all-purpose flour

Why it works: Coconut and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,168 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Cocoanut Buns

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.

Make the batter

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.
Add the eggs, coconut, and milk, and mix well.
Stir in the ground ginger and flour until combined.

Bake

Butter some patty pans and fill them halfway with the mixture.
Place the filled pans into 'Papakuk' bags and bake for 20 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.

Coconut + gingertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,168 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Coconut + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,648 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,467 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Butter: Adds richness and a tender crumb by coating flour particles with fat.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the butter hold air when creamed.
Eggs: Provide structure and help bind the batter as it sets in the oven.
All-purpose flour: Builds the main structure of the buns as its proteins and starches set.
Milk: Adds moisture and hydrates the flour so the batter forms a soft dough.
Desiccated coconut: Adds coconut flavor and a slightly chewy texture to the buns.

Swap the ginger

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

Cinnamonfits better
Nutmegfits better
Turmericfits about as well
Gingerthe original

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