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English Cheesecakes

A coconut cheesecake made with sugar, water, coconut, butter, eggs, and pastry-lined pans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Coconut and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

English Cheesecakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Boil sugar and water for 20 minutes.

  2. Stir in coconut.

  3. Boil for 12 more minutes.

  4. While warm, stir in butter until melted.

  5. Add beaten egg yolks. Mix well.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line patty pans with pastry.

  2. Fill the pans with the mixture.

  3. Bake until set.

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 + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the filling and, boiled with water, thickens it into a syrup that sets.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, giving the filling a tender texture.
Eggs
Egg yolks bind the filling and help it set firm when baked.
Shredded coconut
Adds chewy texture and body to the filling.

The step that matters

Boil the sugar syrup for the full time. The sugar and water must cook long enough to concentrate into a thick syrup. Boiling too briefly leaves the filling runny, so it may not set when baked.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Coconutthe original

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