Name: Cocoanut Made As Jelly Cake
Ingredients: 1 cup butter; 3 cups sugar; 1 cup milk; 5 cups flour; 6 teaspoons baking powder; whites of 8 eggs; whites of 6 eggs (for dressing); ½ pound desiccated coconut; 1 cup powdered sugar

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 ↓

Cocoanut Made As Jelly 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 batter

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Add the milk and mix well.
Gradually add the flour and baking powder, mixing until smooth.
Fold in the whites of 8 eggs gently.
Pour the batter into jelly cake pans and bake until golden.

Make the dressing

For the dressing, beat the whites of 6 eggs until stiff.
Fold in the desiccated coconut and powdered sugar.

Assemble

Spread the coconut mixture between the 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.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Milk + coconuttop 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).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 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: Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar: Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, tender texture when creamed.
Flour: Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the batter, causing the cake to rise and become light.
Egg whites: Whipped foam adds lightness and helps the cake set into a structure.
Desiccated coconut: Adds chewy texture and coconut flavor to the filling between the layers.

The step that matters

Fold in the whites of 8 eggs gently. Whipped egg white foam traps air that lifts the batter. Vigorous stirring deflates it, leaving a denser, flatter cake.

Swap the coconut

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

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Figfits about as well
Coconutthe original

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

White Cake431 recipes

Pound Cake373 recipes

Orange Bundt Cake349 recipes

Spice Cake344 recipes

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Cocoanut Made As Jelly Cake