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Dessert

Cocoa-nut Cheese-cakes

A coconut-based cake made with grated coconut, sugar, eggs, lemon rind, baked in pastry-lined pattypans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Coconut and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,233 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Cocoa-nut Cheese-cakes

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 the coconut

  1. Carefully break the coconut shell to avoid spilling the liquid inside.

  2. Remove the kernel and peel off the dark skin.

  3. Grate the nut.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, combine the grated nut, pounded sugar, and water or coconut milk.

  2. Stir gently over low heat until tender, about 1 hour.

  3. Once cooled, mix in the whisked eggs and lemon rind.

Bake

  1. Line pattypans with pastry.

  2. Fill the pattypans with the mixture.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 13 to 15 minutes.

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. Coconut + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Coconut + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,742 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Fresh coconut
Provides the grated nut that forms the bulk and moist, tender texture of the filling.
Pounded sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it turn tender and cohesive as it cooks.
Large eggs
Bind the cooled filling and set in the oven to give it a firm, cheese-like body.
Lemon rind
Adds aromatic citrus oil that brightens the sweet coconut flavour.

The step that matters

Stir gently over low heat until tender. Cooking the coconut slowly over low heat softens it and drives off excess moisture without scorching the sugar. Scorching gives a bitter, burnt taste, and too much liquid left in the filling can keep it from setting firmly in the oven.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, lemon. 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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