Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓
Coco Nut Ice
Ingredients
Directions
Make the mixture
In a saucepan, combine sugar, milk, and butter.
Boil until a drop forms a ball in cold water.
Stir in desiccated coconut and remove from heat until thickened.
Set and cut
Pour the mixture into a greased dish.
Allow to cool, then cut into pieces.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,648 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,467 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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
- Sugar
- Provides sweetness and, as it dissolves and cooks, forms the firm sugar structure of the candy.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and milk solids that give the candy a softer, creamier texture.
- Butter
- Adds fat that makes the candy smoother and richer in mouthfeel.
- Desiccated coconut
- Adds coconut flavor and a slightly chewy, textured bite to the set candy.
The step that matters
Boiling to the ball stage. Boiling until a drop forms a ball in cold water indicates the sugar concentration is high enough to set firmly on cooling. Too little boiling leaves the candy soft and sticky; too much makes it hard and grainy.
Swap the coconut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, milk, butter):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Peachfits about as well
- Coconutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, butter. 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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