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Dessert

Coco a Nut Cookies

A sweet cookie made with sugar, butter, egg, sweet milk, baking powder, salt, and shredded coconut.

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 ↓

Coco a Nut 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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the egg and sweet milk, mixing well.

  3. Stir in the baking powder and salt.

  4. Gradually add the shredded coconut and mix until combined.

  5. Make the dough just stiff enough to roll out.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough thin and cut into desired shapes.

  2. Place on a baking sheet and bake 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. Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 add richness and a tender texture to the cookies.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cookies rise and lighten.
Shredded coconut
Adds chewy texture, flavor, and some dryness that firms the dough.
White sugar
Sweetens the cookies and helps them brown lightly as they bake.

The step that matters

Make the dough just stiff enough to roll out. Too much liquid from the egg and milk makes the dough sticky and spreading, so cut shapes lose definition. The coconut absorbs moisture, so the dough should be firm enough to hold its shape before rolling.

Swap the coconut

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, 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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