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Cocoa-nut Cake

A coconut-flavored cake with a sweet icing made from egg whites and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Cocoa-nut Cake

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cocoa-nut Cake

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 cake

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, beat the yolks of the eggs until well combined.

  3. Add the powdered sugar, softened butter, sweet milk, flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar to the yolks and mix well.

  4. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gently fold them into the batter.

  5. Pour the batter into jelly‑cake pans and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

Ice and finish

  1. For the icing, beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add the powdered sugar and mix well.

  2. Stir in the grated cocoa‑nut until fully combined.

  3. Spread the icing evenly on the cooled layers of cake.

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

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Milk + cocoatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter and whites, whipped and folded in, lighten its structure.
Butter
Adds fat and tenderness to the crumb and a rich flavor.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter, stabilizing whipped whites and helping the leavening react.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and, in the icing, creates a smooth, set coating.

The step that matters

Folding the whipped egg whites into the batter. Whites beaten to stiff peaks trap air that makes the cake light. Folding gently preserves that air; vigorous stirring deflates the foam and leads to a denser cake.

Swap the cocoa

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Cocoathe original

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