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Dessert

Cocoanut Cookies

A simple cookie made with sugar, butter, milk, shredded coconut, cream of tartar, baking soda, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 Cookies

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream sugar and butter together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add milk, shredded coconut, cream of tartar, and baking soda, then mix well.

  4. Gradually add flour until dough is manageable.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out dough on floured surface and cut into desired shapes.

  2. Place on baking sheet and bake 10-12 minutes until lightly 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. 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 + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

  5. Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air, giving the cookies a light, tender texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the cookies rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the dough so it reacts with the baking soda, aiding rise and tenderness.
Shredded coconut
Adds moisture, chewy texture and coconut flavor to the cookies.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps it brown lightly while creaming with the butter.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until dough is manageable. Adding too much flour at once or overworking the dough makes cookies dense and tough. Adding it gradually lets you stop once the dough holds together and rolls without sticking.

Swap the coconut

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

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

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