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Dessert

Cocoa Nut Cheesecakes

A coconut-based cheesecake made with grated coconut, egg yolks, sugar, and a pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Cocoa Nut Cheesecakes

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.

Prepare the coconut

  1. Remove the outer shell from the coconuts, wash, and dry them.

  2. Grate the coconut flesh.

Make the filling

  1. Dissolve the sugar in a little water over medium heat.

  2. Add the grated coconut and bring to a boil briefly.

  3. Beat the egg yolks until very well mixed, then combine with the coconut mixture.

  4. Beat the mixture together for 30 minutes.

Bake

  1. Fill patty pans with the mixture and cover with a light pastry crust.

  2. Sprinkle additional sugar on top before baking.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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

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

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

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

  3. Coconut + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Coconuts
Provide the grated flesh that forms the body and flavor of the filling.
White sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps form a syrup with the coconut.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and help it set into a custard-like texture when baked.

The step that matters

Beat the mixture together for 30 minutes. Long beating blends the egg yolks evenly through the coconut mixture, so the filling bakes smoothly and sets evenly rather than separating or curdling in patches.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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