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Cocoanut Ice

A sweet coconut dessert made by boiling milk and sugars, adding coconut, and setting into a cooled, colored slab.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Cocoanut Ice

Why it works: Coconut and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,648 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cocoanut Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Bring the milk to a boil in a saucepan.

  2. Add both sugars and boil for 10 minutes.

  3. Pour the mixture into a basin and add the desiccated coconut.

  4. Beat with a fork until the mixture thickens.

Layer and set

  1. Pour half of the mixture into a greased plate.

  2. Color the other half with cochineal.

  3. Spread the colored mixture on top.

  4. Cut into squares before it cools.

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. Coconut + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Loaf sugar
Sweetens and, once boiled, sets into a firm, crystalline candy as it cools.
Castor sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the boiled mixture set into a firm, sliceable candy.
Milk
Supplies moisture and dissolves the sugars, giving the candy a creamy, softer body.
Desiccated coconut
Adds chewy texture and coconut flavor throughout the set candy.

The step that matters

Beat with a fork until the mixture thickens. Beating as the boiled mixture cools encourages many small sugar crystals to form, giving a fine, opaque texture. Stop too late and the mixture sets before it can be poured and spread.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk. 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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